The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union and local unions representing 10 plants in Alabama, Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi and Missouri joined with nonprofit consumer advocacy group Public Citizen to file the lawsuit in federal court in Washington, D.C.

Local health providers say they haven't gotten enough support from the state, and communication has been uncoordinated and inconsistent. One says recent days were "pure hell."

The United Food and Commercial Workers union held an online news conference calling for increased pay and safety requirements to be enforced.

Meat processing plants across the Midwest have become hotspots for COVID-19. Now rural health workers are trying to keep track of workers who get sick -- and those exposed to the disease. But that's challenging because many workers are immigrants or refugees, and theres a language barrier.

While doctors and nurses are risking their lives working with COVID-19 patients in hospitals, others are risking theirs working in stores and making deliveries.

Outbreaks at meat processing facilities have sickened workers and stalled production throughout the Midwest. Side Effects reporters Natalie Krebs (Iowa Public Radio) and Sebastin Martnez Valdivia (KBIA, Missouri), and Ohio Valley ReSource reporter Liam Niemeyer (WKMS, Kentucky) joined engagement specialist Brittani Howell on Facebook Live to talk about how the story has unfolded in their states.

A week after an outbreak of COVID-19 at a turkey processing plant in Huntingburg, Dubois County health officials are confident the outbreak is contained to that facility.

Farbest Foods Huntingburg plant is at least the fourth Indiana meat or poultry processing plant that has faced outbreaks of COVID-19 among its workforce similar to others in the industry across the country.

As the pandemic wreaks havoc on the meat industry, hog farmers anticipate they'll soon be forced to euthanize millions of pigs unable to be sent for processing.

Hoosiers Feeding the Hungry in Garrett has an abundance of pigs sent to it from farmers because the meat processing plants it partners with are either closed or slowed down production due to the virus outbreak.