At least 150 plant workers at Gilster-Mary Lee test positive for coronavirus

Still reeling from the death of its president and CEO to COVID-19, Gilster-Mary Lee Corp., one of Southern Illinois’ largest employers and a critical food manufacturer, continues to grapple with an outbreak of the coronavirus that has idled two plants and sickened numerous factory workers over the past few weeks.

At least 150 workers at Gilster-Mary Lee’s four food manufacturing plants in Randolph County have tested positive for COVID-19.

That includes 100 factory workers who live in Randolph County, and 45 in neighboring Jackson County, in addition to smaller numbers of workers in Perry and Williamson counties, according to figures from the respective health departments.

These cases are in addition to the numerous employees of the company’s administrative office in Chester who contracted the coronavirus or were required to quarantine because of exposure in early April. Many of them have recovered, though the longtime patriarch of the family-run business, Don Welge, died in a St. Louis hospital April 16.

The newspaper was not able to confirm whether there are additional workers who have tested positive who live in other counties, or who work at the company’s plants just across the river in Perry County, Missouri.

The private-label food manufacturer employs about 1,200 people in its Illinois plants and draws employees from across the region.

Though the company has had to temporarily shutter two plants — one in Chester two weeks ago, and one this week in Steeleville — food production continues. The Chester baking mix plant, which shut down April 18, began reopening this week, and two additional plants, one each in Chester and Steeleville, have continued operations uninterrupted. Employees have tested positive across all four plants, though workers at the Steeleville baking mix plant have been hit hardest. About a fourth of the plant’s 400 employees had tested positive as of Friday.

Gilster-Mary Lee began ramping down production there beginning mid-week, and was scheduled to fully close the plant Saturday.

Tom Welge, Gilster’s vice president of technical affairs and general counsel, said the company is working closely with local and state officials and following guidelines of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Employees were provided masks, on an optional basis, beginning three weeks ago, he said.

The company has also contracted with a food safety expert to help guide it through this unprecedented situation.

“We would not continue operating if we did not feel we could safely consider operation,” he said, adding that the company has two primary goals: food safety and employee safety. “And they’re both equally important.”

But some employees have expressed concern. Two employees, and two others, a family member and a close friend of an employee, told The Southern that they feel the company should have done more to protect its factory workers; two of the individuals or their loved ones contracted COVID-19. They all asked that their names be withheld over concerns that speaking out could result in negative consequences for the individuals at their job sites.

Two of the individuals The Southern spoke with said they believed the health department should have taken action to shut down the plant sooner. They said that Gilster moved slowly to close the plant because it wanted to ensure it could continue operating a line that makes a product for Chick-fil-A. That product is typically produced in Chester, but had moved temporarily to Steeleville when the Chester plant was idled. According to Business in Focus magazine, Gilster is the sole provider of chicken coating for the popular restaurant chain.

Local health officials have felt the weight of the pressure. Last weekend, as the number of COVID-19 cases at the Steeleville plant began to escalate, the Randolph County Health Department removed its Facebook page where it had been posting daily updates of case numbers in the county.

Some comments on the Facebook page had been critical of the department. The daily press release is now posted solely to the health department’s website. A few days later, the department announced that it had designated a spokesperson to allow its executive director, Angie Oathout, who had been fielding numerous media calls, to concentrate on the county’s COVID-19 response.

The Southern’s interviews with more than a dozen people with knowledge of the outbreaks at Gilster-Mary Lee, and the response to it, shed light on some of the difficult conversations playing out behind the scenes in a rural area where the public health and economic stakes are high.

Randolph County has one of the highest downstate per-capita infection rates.

Randolph County State’s Attorney Jeremy Walker said that all actions taken to temporarily close plants at Gilster have been done voluntarily by the company. He described talks as amicable, but said it has been a challenging time for everyone.

“We all are working toward the same result, or at least that’s my opinion of things ... which is we’re trying to walk a fine line between keeping people safe, keeping a regional employer — a strong economic engine — open, and providing food to our food supply, which is obviously a necessity at this point,” he said.

Nationally, food supply chain in peril

The tension on display at Gilster-Mary Lee is not unique.

Across the nation, and in Illinois, food manufacturers are scrambling to respond to outbreaks with unclear, and sometimes conflicting guidance, from local, state and federal officials.

Employees who work in them — many who make low wages and receive few benefits — are speaking out about conditions that may put their health, and that of family members, at serious risk. Meanwhile, experts are sounding increasing alarm about COVID-19 outbreaks placing the food supply chain in peril as plants are closed or workers refuse to come to work out of fear of exposure.

“When you start fracturing the food supply, first of all you create panic,” said Matthew Botos, CEO of ConnectFood, a Chicago-based consultant that helps companies comply with food safety regulations. Gilster has contracted with the company to aid its response to the coronavirus. Botos said that the food manufacturing industry in Illinois is looking to the Illinois Department of Public Health and Gov. J.B. Prtizker’s office to issue guidance, in coordination with the federal government, to assist in the response when employees are identified with COVID-19.

“I think one of the issues is that local health departments need to have somebody to ask up,” he said, adding that every local health department has a different skill set, and that some may lack the expertise to make these types of difficult decisions.

To date, most of the national attention has been on the meat-packing and processing industry, where employees typically work in tight quarters. Outbreaks have shuttered numerous plants, with nearly two dozen closing for some period of time over the past two months.

According to the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, at least 20 meat-packing and processing industry workers have died, and 6,500 have been directly affected by the virus.

On April 28, President Trump issued an executive order declaring meat producers “critical infrastructure” and extending to Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue power to invoke the Defense Production Act to mandate that plants continue running.

During his daily news conference April 29, Pritzker said federal guidelines for how to keep factory workers safe “need work.” He said the state is seeking to augment worker safety efforts of the U.S. departments of Agriculture and Labor, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The governor did not offer more specific details, though Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office has received, to date, more than 1,300 complaints related to worker safety during the COVID-19 pandemic, spokeswoman Annie Thompson said. A team of attorneys are working to address complaints by following up with the complainants and individual businesses, she added. None came from workers at Gilster-Mary Lee.

According to Botos, there are about 3,000 food manufacturing companies in Illinois. Many are in the meat-packing and processing industry, but less has been said about other food manufacturers producing everything from mac-and-cheese to food additives such as sweetener and corn syrup to tortillas and Tootsie Rolls.

“I think the frustration our members are finding is that sometimes they’re getting conflicting opinions based on what the feds have expressed, what the state is expressing, and then they may be getting opinions from local leaders, whether they be public health officials or mayors or law enforcement,” said Mark Denzler, president and CEO of the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association.

Walker, the state’s attorney, said Randolph County has “yearned” for clear guidance on how to respond. Under state statute, county health departments have statutory authority to shut businesses down in the interest of public health, and any business subject to a closure order may seek redress through the courts within 48 hours.

But there’s no roadmap for dealing with the coronavirus. Workplaces such as Gilster-Mary Lee are considered essential under Pritzker’s stay-at-home order. And neither state nor federal officials have offered a bright-line test that would guide manufacturers on how to respond to an outbreak, Walker said. “I wish there would be because it would sure make it a lot easier, but I guess that’s why we get paid the big bucks to do what we do,” he said.

‘We’ve got to get people out of the building’

Teams of people are working together to keep Gilster operational.

Representatives of the county’s three hospitals — Chester Memorial, Red Bud Regional and Sparta Community — have been stationed at Gilster’s plants to screen employees when they arrive and leave at every shift change. Temperatures are taken, and employees are questioned about potential exposure. Individuals who are symptomatic are tested for COVID-19 on site and sent home to quarantine and await test results.

That’s how the outbreak was identified at the Steeleville plant.

“We started to identify cases last Friday (April 24) and had a conversation with IDPH and Gilster at that time,” Oathout said.

Initially, a decision was made to keep the plant operational.

“Illinois Department of Public Health felt, at that time, with the number of individuals, and because they were deemed essential, that they did not feel a closure was in order,” she said.

But Oathoat said that by two days later, 28 cases had been identified in the plant. “That’s how quickly it spreads,” she said.

“It just got to the point where I’m like, we can’t continue, we’ve got to get people out of the building,” she said. As of Friday, the health department reported that about 80 residents of Randolph County who work at that Steeleville plant had tested positive; at least two dozen additional workers at that facility who have tested positive for COVID-19 live in surrounding counties.

Welge said he understood the concerns expressed by the health department, and began ramping down production, which required fewer employees through the week, and fully closed Saturday. In addition to routine cleaning, the company is also utilizing a commercial disinfection service as a precautionary measure.

Welge declined to say what products the company continued to produce in Steeleville through week’s end, saying he could not discuss privileged client product information.

Asked if the production that remained through the week was critical in nature, Welge said that his understanding is that “everything that is part of the food chain right now, whether it goes into food service or into the grocery store, is an essential industry.” Gilster makes a large number of shelf-stable products in high demand at grocery stores, including various types of batter, cereal, cornbread, gelatin and pudding, marshmallows, pasta and instant potatoes, to name a few. Its products are mostly sold under store-brand labels. Their products also service food pantries and nursing homes.

Botos, the food safety expert hired by Gilster, said that the company should be applauded for all the steps it has taken to protect workers, and for its willingness to work closely with local and state officials. It has been far more transparent than many other companies, and agreed to on-site employee screening and testing, he said.

He said that company audits show that Gilster has always strictly adhered to sanitization practices and has a solid record of performance. Those efforts were enhanced in response to the global pandemic. Though area health departments have identified the plant as the source of the outbreak, Botos said that perhaps their assumptions are misguided. He suggested that it could be that employees have contracted the virus through community spread, and the cluster of cases only identified through aggressive testing.

“For somebody to say, ‘Oh it happened here at this manufacturing facility?’ I don’t know. I haven’t seen the science behind that yet,” he said.

Botos said that with the focus on cleanliness in a food production facility, he believes it is more likely that people are catching the disease in the broader community. Welge said efforts have been implemented to allow for social distancing on factory floors, and the company is also taking a closer look at policies affecting break rooms and bathrooms. Welge said that several employees share rides to work, which may also be a contributing factor.

“I just hate to put the blame on the food manufacturer and I’d like to highlight what they are doing to make the community stronger, to continue to produce food,” Botos said. He said that one of his biggest concerns is how difficult it would be to jumpstart the economy here again if the company was forced to close down to a greater degree.

Cases multiply across several counties

Other Gilster plants are also experiencing positive cases. Randolph County Health Department is the only one that offered a breakdown of cases by plant among workers that live in the county. As of Friday, 69 workers at the Steeleville “cake” plant from Randolph County had tested positive; seven at the Chester “shredded wheat” plant, and 14 at the Steeleville “pasta” plant. Welge said the pasta plant will shut down for two days next week for cleaning, utilizing a commercial disinfection service.

Ten people who worked at the Chester “cake” plant that was previously temporarily closed have tested positive to date.

By May 1, Randolph County was reporting nearly 170 cases, more than double the number from a week prior. The health department also reported Friday the second death of a county resident who had contracted COVID-19. No additional information was provided about the deceased.

Other counties also saw their COVID-19 cases jump significantly over the past week because of the outbreak at Gilster. Cases more than tripled, from seven to 24, in Perry County, and nearly doubled in Jackson County, from 57 to 120.

Jackson County Health Department Administrator Bart Hagston said that there are 45 Gilster employees from Jackson County who have tested positive, about half of which work at the Steeleville baking mix plant. Another 10 county residents have tested positive who live with Gilster employees. Hagston said that multiple entities have come together to work with the company and its employees.

“They are a food production company and we all have to eat,” he said. “We also have to make sure they can keep going in a safe manner.” Because some of the affected workers in Jackson County are Spanish-only speakers, interpreters have been trained to help with the response. Hagston said that those volunteering their time show how difficult situations can bring out the best in people.

Perry County Health Department Administrator Barb Stevenson expressed concern that some citizens of the county who work at Gilster may feel ostracized because people falsely assume that the company is the only source of community spread. She said that people in her county should realize that they could contract COVID-19 from anyone at any time. Symptoms do not typically develop until days after a person contracts the disease, and some people never develop symptoms at all, but are able to spread it.

Stevenson said the goal is not to fully prevent people from contracting the disease. “We’re trying to keep people from getting it all at once and overwhelming the health care system,” she said. Stevenson said multiple factors have to be weighed in making decisions such as the one Gilster did to temporarily close two plants.

“When you’re supplying the majority of food to food banks, you’re not just impacting the fact of spreading an illness,” she said. “You’re also impacting a company, you’re putting entire households out of income, and then you have the secondary thing to worry about at that point in your community — it’s not just the spread, it’s the economic impact and lack of food.”

Stevenson said that when there’s an outbreak in a factory, the goal is to slow the spread, not necessarily eliminate it.

“Those plants will reopen,” she said. “For those that weren’t in contact with the virus, we hope everyone else is getting over the virus at that point, and then you’ll have your next wave of people that will also get ill.”

Though some of the other plants are also seeing outbreaks, Welge said he’s hopeful that this is the end of shutdowns.

“Each situation is unique,” he said. “We’re trying to use the best practices of what the health department is bringing to us, what we see at the state level and the national level. At some point that becomes the right decision. It may come at those other plants. We hope not. We continue to monitor it daily.”