Amner Martinez still doesn't really know all the details from when his 74-year-old father Concepcion got really sick with COVID-19 near the beginning of the pandemic.
Martinez’s father works at the Tyson Foods plant in Perry, the site of an outbreak in spring 2020 that affected 730 workers.
Martinez said his father, who he called a workaholic like himself, didn’t tell him just how sick he was until he was recovering.
“He said that he was, like, on his knees, basically talking to God,” he said.
Yet, Martinez said his father and stepmother didn’t want to go to the hospital.
“Nobody knew what it was or, you know, different information was coming from different ways, so I feel like they were ashamed about it, like, we’re contagious,” he said.
The Martinez family is originally from Guatemala. They moved to Iowa from California in the 1990s to work in the Tyson Perry plant.
“In 1995, in California, my parents were making $4.25 an hour,” he said.
Martinez said the Tyson job doubled their wages and the cost of living in Iowa was much more affordable.
Most of his extended family, including himself, have worked in the Perry plant.
Martinez now operates his own staffing agency. His clients include some meatpacking companies.
“I know exactly the hard part of [the job],” he said. “And I also know the opportunity that has provided my entire family to just move out of poverty, really.”
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