Salima Jandali was born in Morocco and immigrated to the United States as a child. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in political science and anthropology from the University of Northern Colorado. Jandall is fluent in English, Arabic and French.
She transitioned from UNC to a position at the JBS USA beef processing plant in Greeley, CO, where she was responsible for conducting mandatory safety training for new hires and production employees operating meat processing equipment on the production floor. In addition to employee safety, the training can impact product safety.
The JBS beef production facility, one of nine JBS beef plants in the United States, was acquired by JBS S.A. in the 2007 purchase of Swift & Company for $1.5 billion. The transaction made JBS S.A. the world’s largest beef processor.
Greeley lists JBS USA & Affiliated Companies as the city’s largest employer, providing. 5,277 jobs. It includes the headquarters for JBS Foods USA and the beef production facility.
With its diverse workforce, including many who do not speak English, Jandali’s background and language skills aligned well with JBS’s need to educate all its employees on safety.
However, between her first day employed by JBS USA on Aug. 14, 2019, and her last on Sept. 9, 2024, Jandali claims in considerable detail that she was subject to “months of unaddressed harassment, retaliation and pressure to engage in illegal conduct.”
Her story is told in a 28-page complaint now pending before the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado, which has assigned Magistrate Judge Susan Prose to the case. Tyrone Glover Law LLC in Denver, represents Jandali.
The JBS USA Food Company, which operates the Greeley plant, has until mid-August to respond to the lawsuit. Attorney Matt Morrison of Denver’s Spencer Fane is representing JBS.
Jandali wants a jury trial. She is seeking compensation for economic damages, compensatory damages, and punitive damages “because defendant engaged in intentional discrimination and has so done with malice or reckless indifference to plaintiff’s statutory rights,” her complaint says.
While it’s an employment law case involving civil rights law, job, and religious discrimination, it has captured a wider interest because Jandali worked as a safety trainer at JBS. Her career was critical to preventing serious workplace injuries and deaths. Jandali’s role was crucial to workplace safety, as employee training is essential to avoiding serious workplace injuries and potentially fatal accidents at the Greeley facility, which operates around the clock in three shifts a day.
Reading the Jandali complaint, however, raises questions about whether employee safety is truly a priority for JBS managers or, at the very least, some of its Greeley plant managers. The JBS manager who called Jandali a “stupid Muslim” and “stupid Arab” was also, according to the complaint, throwing out safety equipment, such as work boots and hard hats.
On at least 25 occasions, Jandali claims she arrived at work to find her safety equipment strewn about, missing or in the trash. Her JBS supervisor would feign ignorance while audibly laughing as Jandali searched for her safety gear. Without it, Jandali could not take new hires to the processing floor for training in safety protocols. When she could not locate alternative safety equipment, Jandali would be forced to perform hazardous work without proper protection.
On Dec. 1, 2023, Jandali submitted a formal grievance to union representative Dahir Omar, outlining the JBS supervisor’s discriminatory conduct and the hostile work environment she created.
On Dec. 18, 2023, Omar submitted a formal grievance on behalf of three B Shift Classroom trainers, Jandali, and two other Muslim women, one from Somalia and the other from Myanmar. The union grievance alleged that the company discriminated against employees based on their race, color, religion, and national origin.
That same month, Jandali submitted a Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA) request to Human Resources for leave from Dec. 26, 2023, to March 18, 2024, to assist in her father’s recovery after heart surgery. JBS HR approved her FMLA request on Dec.21, 2023.
While on approved leave, Jandali learned that her JBS employment had been terminated by her supervisor, who claimed that no FMLA paperwork had been received or approved, and that she had a no-call/no-show status for three days. Omar, the union rep, had all the supporting documentation, and HR reinstated Jandali.
She was allowed to complete her FMLA leave and returned to work on March 19, 2024. However, upon return, her email and other login access to training materials, her online work drive, and trainer key access to classrooms and training rooms were all inoperable.
For most of the next month, she sought to regain access through HR and by calling the IT Help Desk more than twenty times. At that time, Jandali made it clear to JBS HR that she was being “limited in her ability to perform her job” and felt that she was being retaliated against for taking leave to care for her father.
She said she was discriminated against and retaliated against while on leave, and she was still suffering from the unlawful actions.
JBS Human Resources Manager Nicolas Aguirre finally contacted Jandali, asking, “What is the issue? What do you need resolved?” He moved the training group’s supervisor to another unit while Jandali was on leave. He insisted that discrimination did not cause the mistaken termination, but rather a paperwork error. He promised to contact the Help Desk to resolve Jandali’s access problems.
As it turned out, however, getting access restored was not easy or quick.
On April 19, 2024, Aguirre emailed Jandali to inform her that he had contacted corporate to approve her request and was waiting for a response. He said that because Jandali was an hourly employee, her requests went to the General Manager, and it appeared it was lost in the shuffle.
Jandali did not regain access to her email system until May 1, 2024, nearly six weeks after her return from leave. Even after regaining full access, all of her prior emails, which contained years of accumulated training information, were deleted.
She contacted Aguirre and her supervisor, training manager Timothy Yantz Jr., who forwarded the inquiry to IT. The IT department stated they could not retrieve her old emails, but the documents on her work drive were still preserved.
Jandali blows the whistle on JBS demands to falsify safety records
According to health and safety regulations, production employees were required. to complete 100 percent of their safety training before working on the meatpacking floor.
In her complaint, Jandalia claims that throughout her employment at JBS, supervisors routinely assigned production employees to work on the floor without ensuring they had completed all the required safety training.
The Greeley plant employs many production workers who are non-English speakers, necessitating the use of interpreters to facilitate their understanding and completion of training. While Jandali could translate and interpret for employees who spoke French and Arabic on her shift, she claims this was highly insufficient to address the language needs for training across shifts.
For example, students in Greeley Public Schools speak more than 50 languages. “Despite this well-known reality, JBS offered no meaningful process to obtain additional interpreters when needed,” according to the Jandali complaint.
Instead, whenever she raised these language barrier issues, she was repeatedly told by her supervisors that facilitating training completion was her job. If employees were not achieving 100 percent completion, then this job was not a good fit for her. Supervisors emphasized that the training completion rates need to be 100 percent, with warnings of consequences should they not meet this goal
According to the complaint, there was always pressure from management to meet production quotas. Still, the company’s demands became more aggressive and unreasonable over time, and the pressure on trainers intensified.
JBS supervisors, the complaint says, frequently put production employees on the floor when they had not fully completed all training, and disapproved when more time was needed for training completion, and expressed upset when employees were not at 100 percent completion despite their complete knowledge of language barriers and other training obstacles that prevented legitimate completion.
Jandali is concerned about what happens when slaughter plant employees do not get sufficient safety training. “Production employees were suffering serious injuries, including losing limbs, and safety protocols needed to be followed,” she said. Her concerns were completely ignored and met with repeated reminders that the records needed to be completed to 100 percent.
On May 1, 2024, two training managers approached her, requesting that she falsify training records for absent employees by marking them as complete when they were incomplete and had not attended the training. Jandali reported these unlawful practices by email to HR Manager Aguirre and JBS General Manager Manlio Medellin.
She described the practice of supervisors and managers handing her a list of classes to complete on behalf of their production employees, even when employees were not physically present in class. She explained that on May 1st, when she refused and requested that the employees attend the training to complete their courses, the manager became upset and told her that he would take her to Human Resources.
She further explained that shortly after the interaction, another manager came in demanding the same, and she told him the same thing: that the employees needed to finish the classes themselves and that having courses completed on their behalf was not acceptable. Jandali reiterated that many employees did not speak English and needed an interpreter to understand safety procedures, and she believed that completing the courses for them was unethical.
She did not receive a response to her email. On May 8, 2024, Mario Rayo, the JBS Superintendent and Slaughter Manager, met with Jandali in his office, telling her that “they need to work together” to get employees to 100 percent of their safety training. Still, if they don’t, she will “receive a write-up and lose her job.”
On May 9, 2024, Jandali again emailed HR’s Aguirre to explain her ongoing concern and described the May 8th encounter with Mr. Rayo. She stated Mr. Rayo was threatening and made her feel powerless and humiliated. She again expressed her belief that such demands were illegal and unethical and that safety must be prioritized. She stated these were longstanding concerns that were not being addressed and asked for Aguirre’s help to resolve them.
She again received no response.
The complaint alleges many more incidents that describe “the harassment, discrimination, and retaliation that Jandali endured at the JBS Greeley plant until Sept. 9, 2024. It caused her to develop severe depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and debilitating physical symptoms, including insomnia, frequent nightmares, inability to concentrate, and extreme fatigue.
JBS is expected to respond to the 9-count civil rights lawsuit by mid-to-late August.
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