Tyson Foods is ranked 73rd on the Fortune 500 list, with a revenue of $43bn in the last fiscal year.
Tyson accounts for the single largest share of chicken plants across the US, processing 2.3 billion birds in 2020.
Tyson is one of the world’s largest food companies, with 139,000 US employees and 177 slaughter and processing plants across 21 states.
The company supplies burgers and nuggets, among other chicken products, to chains including Walmart, McDonalds, KFC and Taco Bell, as well as schools and prisons.
Tyson controls almost every part of its supply chain, including the mills that process grains into animal feed and the hatcheries that produce eggs. It contracts farmers for their labor raising chicks, paying them according to how well they perform compared with other farmers.
Tyson spends big on politics, having invested a total of nearly $18m in lobbying.
The hold that America’s largest meat processing company has on the chicken industry has generated dire consequences for its workers, farmers and the environment.
In Arkansas, where the multinational is headquartered, the company currently accounts for an estimated two-thirds of processed poultry sales. It's a near monopoly in Arkansas. Tyson and the other three top firms control about 87% of poultry production in the state. Economists and food justice advocates largely agree that consumers, farmers, workers, small companies and the planet lose out if the top four firms control 40% or more of any market.
A five-month investigation is based on research and analysis of the most recently available economic, government and industry data, and interviews with labor and farming advocates as well as current and former workers at three Tyson plants.
Its findings include:
Market dominance: Tyson operates almost half the poultry slaughter and processing facilities in Arkansas – the state with the largest number of plants and contract farms in the country.
Farm closures: A complex contracting system used by Tyson and other major processors has coincided with the closure and consolidation of thousands of poultry farms.
Employee benefits cut: Some breaks and bonuses have been curbed, including combining the previously separate annual Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners.
A points-based disciplinary system is used to pressure employees to comply with obligatory overtime which keeps many fearful employees working even when injured or sick.
Covid outbreaks: Measures to limit the spread of Covid have been inadequate or poorly implemented, resulting in multiple deaths at its Arkansas plants.
Misleading job advertisements offering new recruits $15 per hour are deceptive as most roles are excluded, according to employees. The Guardian interviewed workers with more than 20 years at Tyson earning below $14 an hour.
Speed and output targets are prioritized over employee welfare, hygiene and food safety, according to workers from three plants interviewed by the Guardian.
Cockroaches, flies and crickets are rife in some plants and can end up in chicken nuggets and burgers supplied to schools, fast food joints and supermarkets, workers said.
The economist Rebecca Boehm, lead author of the new UCS report Tyson spells trouble for Arkansas, explains “When a company like Tyson can get so big and powerful, where they have a near-monopoly and monopsony in their industry, they make their own rules and rake in profits, while everyone else suffers.”
Tyson contracts farmers to raise millions of chicks and then dispose of the litter generated in the densely confined factory farms. In 2017, its Arkansas farms produced about 50bn lb of this fecal waste – which is used as fertilizer but which studies show contributes to poor air quality and can contaminate local waterways. Large Latino and Indigenous communities in Benton and Washington counties are disproportionately impacted.
Plant workers and residents are blighted by offensive odours and noise pollution, which have a detrimental impact on their health, quality of life and house prices. “I don’t complain because I don’t want to alienate the biggest employer in the area, but I haven’t had people over in almost 20 years,” said Matthew Pelto, a homeowner who lives opposite Tyson’s huge plant in downtown Springdale.
As a near monopoly, Tyson can largely dictate worker wages and prices for farmers, as well as a whole range of conditions and regulations affecting everything from animal welfare to worker safety to environmental hazards.
“The farmers are on a treadmill, earning only what the big corporations are willing to pay, regardless of the true labor and environmental costs,” said Joe Maxwell, president of Family Farm Action.
Raquel Jimenez has lived in the US for 35 years – most of which she’s spent working for Tyson’s flagship Springdale plant.
Jimenez works six days a week at the imposing slaughter and processing facility, including obligatory overtime every Saturday even though she’d rather be home with her children and grandchildren. If she doesn’t go in, Jimenez will get one to three punitive points; 14 points gets you fired.
In the past, workers report, they earned two hours’ credit for every obligatory Saturday shift, but that benefit was cut several years back. Two half-hour breaks have been cut to one 20-minute break, during which workers must remove their protective gear, heat up their food, eat, go to the bathroom, redress, and be back on the line. Supervisors stand around the dining room, making sure no one is late back.
“We barely have time to eat and it’s tense and uncomfortable with them watching us. I’m fed up but it’s hard to complain. They could fire me at any moment,” said Jimenez. “As Tyson has made more money, our benefits have been cut and cut. It’s very disheartening. If we were Americans, they wouldn’t treat us like this. It’s racism against migrants.”
31,000 mostly Black and brown people work in Arkansas’ poultry slaughter and processing industry, accounting for 10% of the nationwide industry total. The jobs are often fast and repetitive, with workers exposed to hazards including chemicals, extreme temperatures, dangerous equipment, excessive noise and in some cases unfair and degrading treatment by supervisors and nurses.
Non-fatal injury and illness rates in the poultry-processing industry were higher than in all other private industries.
Covid hospitalizations are at an all-time high in Arkansas, but public health measures are not being implemented in the plants, according to employees. It is named in several ongoing lawsuits for alleged negligence that allowed Covid to spread in its plants.
Tyson has been fined at least $169m since 2000 for employment, antitrust and environmental violations.
Carlos Sanchez, 39, is a machine operator and says the quantity of chicken nuggets and burgers produced every shift has risen substantially since he started, while staff numbers have been cut. This can impact worker and food safety.
Sanchez said: “Tyson earns billions while we have to work in brutal conditions for low pay. I would never recommend anyone work for the company.”
No comments:
Post a Comment