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Volume 11, Issue 48
In This Issue:
December 2, 2020
* Page 2 * Page 4
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Gardner Announces Colorado Springs as Finalist for Space Command 8 Things to be Thankful for
Meatpacking Giant JBS Battles New Coronavirus Outbreaks At Greeley Plant And Corporate Offices
By Chuck Murphy, Colorado Public Radio The coronavirus respite at a Greeley meatpacking plant did not last long. Just more than a month after one of the state’s most serious workplace outbreaks was declared resolved, the JBS plant is once again confronting a COVID-19 outbreak among its plant workers, according to a statewide outbreak report released Wednesday by the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment. The new outbreak, which began Nov. 17, first appeared on last week’s report with The JBS meatpacking plant in Greeley, Thursday, 20 confirmed inOct. 8, 2020.Hart Van Denburg/CPR News fections. That grew over the past week to at least 32 workers at JBS, all of whom have labconfirmed cases of the illness caused by the coronavirus. The slow growth indicates that the virus may not be sweeping unchecked through the plant as it did in the spring. That outbreak, which began April 3 in the massive plant, eventually sickened 292 workers who had confirmed cases of the disease and another three who were suspected of having it, but not confirmed. It took six and a half months to resolve. Six JBS workers in the plant died from COVID-19 and a seventh, in the corporate office, also died. Kim Cordova, president of United Food and Commercial Workers Local 7, said she has been watching the third wave of COVID-19 infections in Colorado with concern, worried that the virus would once again reach her union members in Greeley.
“We›re really worried about things turning deadly again,» said Cordova, who is also an international vice president for the UFCW union. “These workers don›t have opportunity for social distancing ... They don›t have control over it.» ‘We Don’t Want Other People to Suffer’: JBS Families Wait, Fight And Hope For Accountability Cameron Bruett, head of corporate affairs and sustainability at JBS, said in an email, “We conduct random, routine surveillance testing at our facilities on a weekly basis to identify any potential virus introduction into our facilities.” Cordova, whose union represents about 3,000 workers in the plant, credited JBS with taking some steps to protect workers recently. Among them, she said the company started to put older workers with pre-existing conditions on paid leave to keep them out of the plant once the virus was detected again. “I do think JBS, once they got some new cases in the plant, the company did make moves quicker to at least move the at-risk employees,” Cordova said. Bruett said the company first removed vulnerable employees in March, paying them salary and benefits, and that overall about 10 percent of the workforce in Greeley has been under that arrangement at some point. Some have returned after coronavirus cases subsided in the community, and the employees passed a physical. The plant is one of several nationwide in the meatpacking industry to have had outbreaks, making the industry a symbol of COVID-19’s impact on frontline workers, many of whom are older immigrants to the U.S. The plants provide the nation’s meat, making widespread shutdown a national security issue. And workers on the line stand close together to efficiently process the cattle carcasses, making infection control a challenge. At one point Vice President Mike Pence became involved, promising testing resources to the plant. But while all employees were eventually subjected to temperature screenings to check for fevers before entering the plant, there was not universal testing, and Cordova said that is still the case now. JBS responded to the Greeley outbreak in the spring with a brief shutdown of operations to clean the plant, install shields, stagger schedules in the lunchroom and put more emphasis on infection control for the staff. It wasn’t enough, according to the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration. That agency fined JBS nearly $16,000 for failing to protect workers, an amount the union considered paltry. The initial outbreak on the main floor of the Greeley plant was finally declared over on Oct. 20. The corporate offices of JBS had their own second outbreak begin the day before that. So far, 38 people in the corporate offices have contracted COVID-19 as part of this new wave of infections, according to the latest CDPHE report. CPR News Director Rachel Estabrook contributed to this report.
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T H E T R I B U TA R Y
Gardner Announces Colorado Springs is a Finalist for U.S. Space Command Headquarters
Co-founder of Senate Space Force Caucus successfully pushed for Colorado’s selection for U.S. Space Command provisional headquarters
Washington, D.C. – U.S. Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO) applauded the announcement today that Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs has been selected as a finalist to be the permanent home to U.S. Space Command headquarters. Peterson Air Force Base is the current provisional location for U.S. Space Command headquarters, and Gardner has pushed the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to permanently reestablish U.S. Space Command in Colorado to harness the state’s existing military assets to coordinate space operations for the U.S. military and address emerging threats in space. “In Colorado we are proud to play a pivotal role in our national defense and military space operations, and I am thrilled that Peterson Air Force Base will receive a site visit for consideration to be home to U.S. Space Command headquarters,” said Senator Gardner. “Colorado’s leadership in space is unmatched – with our existing military space infrastructure, Colorado is the perfect place for the permanent home to U.S. Space Command. Colorado is well prepared to make its final pitch during the upcoming site visits.” Senator Gardner urged President Trump, Vice President Pence, former Secretary of Defense Esper, Secretary of the Air Force Barrett, and former Commander of U.S. Space Command General Jay Raymond to select Colorado as the permanent headquarters for U.S. Space Command. Gardner serves on the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation, a key committee with oversight of U.S. space and aerospace policies. Colorado was the first home of the U.S. Space Command when it was previously established at Peterson Air Force Base in 1985. Today, Colorado continues to possess the trained military personnel and technical expertise necessary to assume the responsibilities of a Unified Combatant Command for space and the space-related responsibilities currently assigned to United States Strategic Command. Timeline of Gardner’s push to bring Space Command to Colorado: September 2020: Senators Gardner, Sinema, Cramer, and Heinrich launched the U.S. Senate Space Force Caucus. June 2020: Gardner applauded Colorado’s legislature for passing a bill to allow military spouse licensure reciprocity. May 2020: Gardner applauded Colorado’s selection as provisional headquarters of U.S. Space Command. December 2019: Gardner successfully authorized the U.S. Space Force as a military service branch in the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020. September 2019: Gardner applauded the announcement that U.S. Space Command was temporarily established at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs. August 2019: Gardner, the entire Colorado Congressional Delegation, and Governor Jared Polis joined together to send a letter to the DOD reiterating their call for the headquarters to be reestablished in Colorado. July 2019: Gardner authored a letter to the Secretary of Defense Mark Esper urging the U.S. Space Command headquarters to be established in Colorado. June 2019: Gardner introduced General Jay Raymond, Commander of Air Force Space Command at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, as the nominee to lead the United States Space Command at his nomination hearing in the Senate Armed Services Committee. May 2019: Gardner continued to push for the U.S. Space Command headquarters to consider Colorado as a new relocation after official notification that the Secretary of the Air Force was considering four Air Force Bases in Colorado as potential locations. March 2019: Gardner, the entire Colorado Congressional Delegation, and Governor Jared Polis joined together to urge the DOD to reestablish the U.S. Space Command in Colorado. February 2019: When the President Trump signed a directive establishing the Space Force, Gardner called for continued expansion of military space operations to Colorado, including the new U.S. Space Command headquarters.
December 2, 2020
TRIVIA What’s the name of Arnold’s brother, on TV’s Diff’rent Strokes? WILLIS Do skinks have legs? YES What are professional wrestlers Hawk and Animal better known as? THE ROAD WARRIORS What are found in France’s Biblioteque Nationale? BOOKS What color hair does Tom Bailey of The Thompson Twins have? RED What’s the most common first name taken by Popes? JOHN What play inspired the title of Disney’s Something This Way Comes - Hamlet, Macbeth or Othello? MACBETH Does the whippoorwill sport whiskers? YES What General Mills cereal is described as “Frosted Corn Puffs”? TRIX Which has more states - India or the U.S.? THE U.S. What British group’s Red, Red Wine was their first song to hit the U.S. top 40? UB40’S Who was born first - Christopher Columbus or William Shakespeare? CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS What color hair did Snow White have, in prefilming story sketches? BLOND Which do new born muskrats learn to do first - open their eyes or swim? SWIM Does Disneyland offer a Handicapped Guest Guide? YES What U.S. state is home to Redwood National Park? CALIFORNIA
December 2, 2020
Also on This Day
US GOVERNMENT 1970 Anew federal agency opens its doors. Created in response to the dawning realization that human activity can have major effects on the planet, the Environmental Protection Agency heralded a new age of government action on behalf of the environment. ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY 1972 The Temptations earn the last of their four chart-topping hits when “Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone” reaches #1 on the Billboard Hot 100. Over the course of their storied career. FRANCE 1804 In Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, Napoleon Bonaparte is crowned Napoleon I, the first Frenchman to hold the title of emperor in a thousand years. Pope Pius VII handed Napoleon the crown that the 35-year-old conqueror of Europe placed on his own head. ABOLITIONIST MOVEMENT 1859 Militant abolitionist John Brown is executed on charges of treason, murder and insurrection on December 2, 1859. Brown, born in Connecticut in 1800, first became militant during the mid-1850s, when as a leader of the Free State forces in Kansas he fought pro-slavery settlers . U.S. PRESIDENTS 1823 During his annual address to Congress, President James Monroe proclaims a new U.S. foreign policy initiative that becomes known as the “Monroe Doctrine.” RED SCARE 1954 The U.S. Senate votes 65 to 22 to condemn Senator Joseph R. McCarthy for conduct unbecoming of a senator. The condemnation, which was equivalent to a censure, related to McCarthy’s controversial investigation of suspected communists in the U.S. WORLD WAR II 1942 Enrico Fermi, the Italian-born Nobel Prizewinning physicist, directs and controls the first nuclear chain reaction in his laboratory beneath the bleachers of Stagg Field at the University of Chicago, ushering in the nuclear age. ART, LITERATURE, AND FILM HISTORY 1997 “Good Will Hunting” premieres in theaters
T H E T R I B U TA R Y
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This Day in History - December 2, 2001 Enron Files for Bankruptcy
On December 2, 2001, the Enron Corporation files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in a New York court, sparking one of the largest corporate scandals in U.S. history. An energy-trading company based in Houston, Texas, Enron was formed in 1985 as the merger of two gas companies, Houston Natural Gas and Internorth. Under chairman and CEO Kenneth Lay, Enron rose as high as number seven on Fortune magazine’s list of the top 500 U.S. companies. In 2000, the company employed 21,000 people and posted revenue of $111 billion. Over the next year, however, Enron’s stock price began a dramatic slide, dropping from $90.75 in August 2000 to $0.26 by closing on November 30, 2001. As prices fell, Lay sold large amounts of his Enron stock, while simultaneously encouraging Enron employees to buy more shares and assuring them that the company was on the rebound. Employees saw their retirement savings accounts wiped out as Enron’s stock price continued to plummet. After another energy company, Dynegy, canceled a planned $8.4 billion buy-out in late November, Enron filed for bankruptcy. By the end of the year, Enron’s collapse had cost investors billions of dollars, wiped out some 5,600 jobs and liquidated almost $2.1 billion in pension plans. Over the next several years, the name “Enron” became synonymous with large-scale corporate fraud and corruption, as an investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the U.S. Justice Department revealed that Enron had inflated its earnings by hiding debts and losses in subsidiary partnerships. The government subsequently accused Lay and Jeffrey K. Skilling, who served as Enron’s CEO from February to August 2001, of conspiring to cover up their company’s financial weaknesses from investors. The investigation also brought down accounting giant Arthur Andersen, whose auditors were found guilty of deliberately destroying documents incriminating to Enron. In July 2004, a Houston court indicted Skilling on 35 counts including fraud, conspiracy and insider trading. Lay was charged with 11 similar crimes. The trial began on January 30, 2006, in Houston. A number of former Enron employees appeared on the stand, including Andrew Fastow, Enron’s ex-CFO, who early on pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy and agreed to testify against his former bosses. Over the course of the trial, the defiant Skilling–who unloaded almost $60 million worth of Enron stock shortly after his resignation but refused to admit he knew of the company’s impending collapse–emerged as the figure many identified most personally with the scandal. In May 2006, Skilling was convicted of 19 of 35 counts, while Lay was found guilty on 10 counts of fraud and conspiracy. When Lay died from heart disease just two months later, a Houston judge vacated the counts against him. That October, the 52-year-old Skilling was sentenced to more than 24 years in prison.
SUDOKU
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T H E T R I B U TA R Y
December 2, 2020
8 Things to be Thankful for in 2020
by Emily Krempholtz in Coloradoinfo.com Pardon our French, but it has been a hell of a year. Since March, we’ve been living in a state of heightened anxiety, fear, anf change that most Americans have never seen before in their lifetimes. The COVID-19 global pandemic has changed the ways we live our lives in so many ways, and for some of us, that means losing jobs, social outlets, or even loved ones to this virus. As Thanksgiving approaches, and officials ask us to make still more changes to our traditions by staying at home and not interacting with extended family outside of our household, it’s easy to feel frustrated and hopeless. But with that in mind, it’s important to focus on the things we can still be thankful for this Thanksgiving—yes, even in 2020. 1. A Coronavirus Vaccine Is On the Way Three major pharmaceutical companies have reported promising results when it comes to their research into a COVID-19 vaccine. Studies are still ongoing, and nothing has yet been approved by the CDC or under and Emergency Use Authorization from the FDA, but we have reason to believe we could see the approval of a vaccine within the next several weeks or months. This is great news! It means there’s a light at the end of the tunnel, and it means if we follow protocols and continue staying at home until the vaccine is approved, there’s a real chance we could resume our normal lives in 2021. 2. Wildfire Season is Over COVID-19 wasn’t the only thing plaguing Colorado in 2020—we had not one, not two, but three record-breaking wildfires throughout the state this year. The Pine Gulch Fire, the East Troublesome Fire, and the Cameron Peak Fire ravaged hundreds of thousands of acres in Colorado, destroying homes and lives throughout the state and spreading faster than anyone could have imagined. But now, the smoke has cleared, the flames are mostly extinguished, and we can start to rebuild and offer support to our fellow Coloradans who have lost so much. And as we head into the colder, snowier months of the year, we can add “no more wildfires” to our list of things to be grateful for. 3. Local Businesses No one’s denying it’s been an unbelievably tough year for small businesses. Reduced capacity regulations, outright closures, and general trepidation amongst much of the population have ravaged small local businesses this year. But something to be grateful for is the creativity this has sparked among small businesses. Restaurants have gotten extremely creative in increasing their outdoor seating capacities in a safe, distanced, and well-ventilated way. Others, from boutiques to bookshops, are offering curbside pickup to customers, and many are even teaming up with other local businesses to provide their services this year to deliver their goods and make them available to the masses. We are thankful to local businesses for pushing through the challenges of this difficult year, and we can show that thanks by shopping from small, local retailers this holiday season! 4. Our Big Colorado Backyard Could you imagine riding out this year in a state that doesn’t have the natural wonders of Colorado? We’re not sure about you, but Colorado’s hiking and biking trails have been a lifesaver this year, allowing us to get outdoors when isolating in our homes and apartments have become too stifling, and going for a quick hike with a friend instead of having them over for dinner has been a fantastic compromise instead of not seeing them at all. Colorado’s mountains, rivers, valleys, and plains have provided the much-needed fresh air, ventilation, and beauty that we all needed this year, and though we’re thankful for Colorado’s natural landscape every year, it deserves a special thank you in 2020. 5. Our Fellow Coloradans We’ve stepped up our game for our neighbors this year. Everyone you see on the street or on the trail or at the grocery store who is wearing a mask is doing so to help keep you safe. Everyone you know who is skipping Thanksgiving with their family, or staying at home when they really want to be out with friends, is doing so because it’s for the greater good of our Colorado community and for humankind. That is no small feat, and it’s been a pretty thankless task. Take a moment to stop and thank the people in your life who are working hard and sacrificing so much to keep you and your loved ones safe and healthy this year. And next time you leave the house with a mask on, or choose not to leave the house at all, give yourself a pat on the back, because you’re making a difference, too. 6. Our Essential Workers and Healthcare Community Back when the pandemic started, cities and towns across the globe would do things to say thank you to essential workers while we sheltered in place—banging pots and pans, clapping, playing music, or singing at a certain hour every evening, donating food and hot meals for overworked hospital staff, and more. But as the pandemic has continued and the novelty has worn off, these acts have died down, even as cases have gone up. Essential workers are no less stressed than they were in March and April—in fact, many of them are dealing with far more than they ever were, and levels of burnout across the healthcare industry are at an all-time high. So if you have an essential worker in your life, whether they are a nurse or a grocery store cashier, make sure to tell them thank you, and treat them with the empathy, respect, and kindness they deserve. 7. Friends and Family They say absence makes the heart grow fonder, and for those of us who have gone months without seeing our family and friends, that’s certainly true. This Thanksgiving, hug your kids a little closer, or make sure to say “I love you” over that virtual Thanksgiving Zoom chat, because we’re all feeling a little lonelier than usual this year, and it’s important to tell the people we love that we care about them. Remember, your actions are keeping them safe and healthy this year, and vice versa, and while that’s not easy or fun, it’s something to be thankful for. 8. 2020 is ALMOST OVER! Look, when it comes down to it, after Thanksgiving, we have a little over a month left in this nightmare of a year, and if that’s not something to be thankful for, we’re not sure what is!