Meatpacking Giant Tyson Mandates Vaccines for All Workers

The decision comes after a gruesome series of outbreaks.

Workers on the line at a Tyson poultry plant. Tyson Foods

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

When COVID-19 infections began blitzing meatpacking plants last year, no company’s workers bore the brunt of the pandemic quite like those of Tyson Foods, the enormous purveyor of chicken, beef, and pork. Some 12,536 of the company’s 120,000 US employees have tested positive for the virus, and 39 have died from it, according to the news organization FERNā€”in both cases, more than twice the counts of any other meatpacking firm. Back in December, Tyson fired seven managers at an Iowa pork-processing plant after an investigation into claims that they had placed bets on how many workers would contract the virus. 

With the highly contagious Delta variant circulating in the United States, Tyson has emerged as the first meatpacking company to mandate that all its employeesā€”from executives to workers on the kill floorā€”be vaccinated against COVID. Current packinghouse workers will have until November 1 to go through a full course of vaccine shots; new hires will have to show proof of vaccination before their start dates. The company’s announcement doesn’t mention whether workers will be given paid time off to receive and recover from the shots, but it is offering a $200 bonus to fully vaccinated team members “as thank you for doing your part to keep us all safe.” (Tyson did not respond to requests for comment on whether workers will be offered time off to get the jabs.)

Workers in some Tyson plants belong to unions, and that could complicate efforts to enforce the edict. Vaccination requirements for unionized workers “will be subject to the results of union bargaining on this issue,” the Tyson announcement states. 

Marc Perrone, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents 24,000 Tyson workers, stated in a Tuesday press release that “we support and encourage workers getting vaccinated against the COVID-19 virus, and have actively encouraged our members to do so,” but also expressed concern about the company’s decision to require vaccinations before the US Food and Drug Administration has fully approval them. (COVID vaccines now on the market are available under a provisional Emergency Use Authorization pending formal approval.) 

Perrone added that the union will meet with Tyson in the coming weeks “to ensure that the rights of these workers are protected, and this policy is fairly implemented,” emphasizing that “employers should provide paid time off so that their essential workers can receive the vaccine without having to sacrifice their pay, and can rest as needed while their body adjusts to the vaccine and strengthens their immune system to fight off the virus.”

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

WE'LL BE BLUNT

It is astonishingly hard keeping a newsroom afloat these days, and we need to raise $253,000 in online donations quickly, by October 7.

The short of it: Last year, we had to cut $1 million from our budget so we could have any chance of breaking even by the time our fiscal year ended in June. And despite a huge rally from so many of you leading up to the deadline, we still came up a bit short on the whole. We canā€™t let that happen again. We have no wiggle room to begin with, and now we have a hole to dig out of.

Readers also told us to just give it to you straight when we need to ask for your support, and seeing how matter-of-factly explaining our inner workings, our challenges and finances, can bring more of you in has been a real silver lining. So our online membership lead, Brian, lays it all out for you in his personal, insider account (that literally puts his skin in the game!) of how urgent things are right now.

The upshot: Being able to rally $253,000 in donations over these next few weeks is vitally important simply because it is the number that keeps us right on track, helping make sure we don't end up with a bigger gap than can be filled again, helping us avoid any significant (and knowable) cash-flow crunches for now. We used to be more nonchalant about coming up short this time of year, thinking we can make it by the time June rolls around. Not anymore.

Because the in-depth journalism on underreported beats and unique perspectives on the daily news you turn to Mother Jones for is only possible because readers fund us. Corporations and powerful people with deep pockets will never sustain the type of journalism we exist to do. The only investors who wonā€™t let independent, investigative journalism down are the people who actually care about its futureā€”you.

And we need readers to show up for us big timeā€”again.

Getting just 10 percent of the people who care enough about our work to be reading this blurb to part with a few bucks would be utterly transformative for us, and that's very much what we need to keep charging hard in this financially uncertain, high-stakes year.

If you can right now, please support the journalism you get from Mother Jones with a donation at whatever amount works for you. And please do it now, before you move on to whatever you're about to do next and think maybe you'll get to it later, because every gift matters and we really need to see a strong response if we're going to raise the $253,000 we need in less than three weeks.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate