JBS Statement
29 July 2020
It has been brought to our attention that there has been confusion among our workforce about the
type of leave employees are entitled to take as part of the government mandated temporary
shutdown of the Brooklyn facility. There’s no question that any worker who tested positive to COVID
is entitled to access their sick leave. Whilst employees are not entitled to sick leave during a
government mandated stand-down under law, JBS has in good faith allowed employees to swap out
annual leave for sick leave.
JBS has worked closely with Victoria Health and the Department of Health and Human Services to
ensure our workplace is COVID safe. Our business is only as healthy as its workers. Protecting their
well-being and safety, whilst simultaneously safeguarding their livelihoods as we navigate this
challenging time, remains our number one priority.
JBS Brooklyn is the state’s largest meat-processing facility, providing jobs to 1230 Victorians – and is
a vital link in Australia’s $15bn meat export supply chain.
Since the facility’s temporary closure, our entire JBS Brooklyn workforce has been tested for COVID19 twice. We will continue to rigorously test our employees going forward, mindful that the safe
continuation of operations at Brooklyn is in the best interests of local jobs, the local economy, and
the continuity of meat supply for both Australia and the export market.
In addition to the deep-clean of the Brooklyn facility that has already taken place, we continue to
conduct frequent and comprehensive cleaning of workplace areas and continue to enforce the
physical separation policies between our employees who work in different processing areas as well
as the installation of perspex separators. The siloing of our different processing areas within the
broader Brooklyn site will also ensure that any suspected new cases can be contained to an
individual area without impacting workers on the rest of the site.
State-of-the-art thermal temperature checking technology will continue to be employed at the
Brooklyn facility – as it is at all our sites around the country – ensuring continuous monitoring of
employee well-being.
The efforts we have undertaken have been recognised by the Australasian Meat Industry Employer’s
Union (AMIEU) who have gone on record in the media in recent days praising the lengths to which
we have gone to continue to ensure our workplace is COVID Safe.
Whilst we cannot control the community spread of COVID-19 Australia, we will continue to focus on
the things we can control and ensure the level of precautions we are taking as a business are of the
highest industry standard. We have rolled out COVID safety education programs for all our
employees, across all of our facilities around the country, with information available in multiple
languages, reflecting the diverse cultures from which we proudly draw our workers.
We continue to work closely with Victoria Health to ensure JBS Brooklyn continues to operate safely.