"Essential workers should be treated as essential human beings," Sergio Sosa, executive director of the Heartland Workers Center in Omaha, said during a media briefing organized by Nebraska Appleseed through Zoom video conferencing.

With highly publicized outbreaks of the virus already reported at meat-processing plants in Grand Island, Lexington, Dakota City, Madison, Hastings and Crete, a question was posed during the briefing about the lack of information coming from packing plants in South Omaha.

"We don't know how many may be infected" at those plants in Nebraska's most-populous county, Sosa said in answer to the inquiry.

"They don't have unions," he said, and the companies "should share with us ... and be truthful about their workplace."

Worker advocates painted the picture of a workforce largely composed of immigrants and people of color who work shoulder-to-shoulder and across from one another on rapidly moving production lines.

Workers need to hold onto those jobs in order to feed their families, especially during this period of economic distress and unemployment, a range of advocates said. 

So meatpacking workers go to work even when they are afraid to do so, and some of them come to work even though they are feeling sick out of fear of risking their jobs, a variety of speakers said.

Meat-processing plants are "the ground zero of this pandemic," Olga Guevara of South Sioux City said, speaking for a support group called Unity in Action.

If this is allowed to continue unabated, Sosa said, "you will have beef, you will have pork, but you might not have a workforce."

Worker advocates pointed to the primary need for packing plants to provide the 6 feet of personal distancing among workers on production lines that would conform to the fundamental distancing safety standard that is in effect outside the plants.

"Six feet of distancing is not happening," said Becky Gould, executive director of Nebraska Appleseed.

"We do not have to choose between food production and safety protection," she said.

A national spotlight is focused on the coronavirus outbreak in meatpacking plants in the wake of President Donald Trump's order Tuesday for beef, pork and poultry processing to remain open despite safety concerns. 

Trump said he will also attempt to protect meat-processing plants from legal liability if they are sued by workers who contract coronavirus while on the job.

The collection of worker advocates said they have sent a letter to Ricketts urging him to provide needed protection for workers at plants in Nebraska "without delay."

The governor has previously declined to impose the 6-feet distancing standard at the plants.

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration sets standards at meatpacking plants, but the states have authority to attach additional requirements.

Worker advocates also asked Ricketts to require paid sick leave, job protection and shutdown pay so workers can afford to stay home when they need to.

Responding to those concerns during a coronavirus news briefing later in the day, Ricketts said meat-processing production lines are "a very difficult environment (in which) to be able to socially distance," but companies have provided some distancing through barriers, "as well as spreading people out."

The work environment is one aspect of the coronavirus challenge, the governor said, suggesting that it could be "more likely to pick up the infection outside the workplace," perhaps at a grocery store. 

Ricketts praised Trump for his actions recognizing the importance of keeping plants open. 

Protecting packing plant workers would also "help slow the spread of the virus (and) protect all Nebraskans," Gould said earlier.

All Nebraskans "face increased risk if essential workers go to work unprotected or because they can't afford not to," said Rose Godinez, legal and policy counsel for ACLU of Nebraska.

Sixty-six percent of Nebraska's meatpacking workers are immigrants, according to Alexis Steele, policy staff attorney at the Immigrant Legal Center.