COVID-toll office pool ‘for morale’

A manager at Tyson Foods who was fired for participating in an office betting pool on how many coworkers would contract COVID-19 said Tuesday the stunt was meant as a “morale boost” for overworked supervisors.

Don Merschbrock, one of seven managers terminated for the stunt at the company’s pork processing plant in Waterloo, Iowa, claims supervisors came up with the idea last spring, just after mass testing of 2,800 workers at the facility.

He said the winner-take-all jackpot went to the person who picked the correct percentage of workers who came down with the virus.

“It was a group of exhausted supervisors that had worked so hard,” Merschbrock said. “It was simply something fun, kind of a morale boost for having put forth an incredible effort.”

He said managers worked 12-hour shifts seven days a week to keep up production while incorporating virus precautions.

Tyson fired the supervisors weeks after a federal lawsuit in Iowa alleged that Tom Hart, the plant’s manager, organized the cash buy-in pool in late March and April as he and other top employees avoided the plant floor out of fears of contracting the virus.

More than two dozen workers at the plant were hospitalized with coronavirus April 12, according to the lawsuit. Company officials said in May that more than 1,000 workers had tested positive, and at least six had died.

Attorneys for the estates of four dead Tyson employees claim in wrongful-death lawsuits that the pool shows the company is not concerned with safety.

A spokesman for Tyson declined to comment on Merschbrock’s claims.