WATERLOO, Iowa - A lawsuit against Tyson Foods now claims the company gave incorrect information to interpreters at its Waterloo plant.
The newly amended suit from families of deceased workers says interpreters were instructed to tell non-English speakers that "everything is fine" at an April meeting, just as the plant experienced a COVID-19 outbreak.
The suit also accuses managers of saying the county had "cleared" the plant, even though the Black Hawk County Health Department had urged Tyson to shut down the factory.
The lawsuit was initially filed last month, claiming managers bet money on how many workers would contract COVID-19.
It claims the plant manager, Tom Hart, organized a betting pool for supervisors and managers to wager on how many employees would test positive for COVID-19.
The suit also claims an upper-level manager, John Casey, explicitly directed supervisors to ignore COVID-19 symptoms, and referred to the virus as the "glorified flu"
Hart and Casey have since been suspended without pay.
Tyson did temporarily close the plant in April as more than a third of its 2,800 workers contracted the virus.