LINCOLN- Sen. Tony Vargas of South Omaha won initial approval for LB241, a bill that would provide COVID-19 protections to meatpacking plant workers over the next year. Sen. Vargas' district includes many meatpacking workers who he says deserve safeguards for working in close quarters through the pandemic despite high rates of infections and deaths. Nebraska counties with meat processing plants were hit the hardest by the pandemic, with data showing that 7,382 packing plant workers were infected, 256 hospitalized and 28 deaths.

"And these are just the numbers that were reported ... they don't represent the community spread," said Vargas, whose own father, a former food processing worker from New York, died due to the coronavirus.

A group of senators opposed the bill saying that this is an 'empty' bill and if this could actually drop the number of people getting infected. Other senators said their district's meatpacking plants have seen little to no COVID-19 activity recently. "His heart is in the right place," said Blair Sen. Ben Hansen. "(But) sometimes you have to trust the people and err on the side of liberty."

Proponents of the bill say that the pandemic is not over and many people are still unvaccinated and go to work in fear everyday. The measures passed with a 27-16 vote.

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