At the height of the first-wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, Hispanic, Black, and Asian front-line workers at Tyson Foods meat-packing facilities in Springdale, Arkansas worked shoulder-to-shoulder in low ventilated, congregate spaces, while taking orders from a white management team who wagered with their lives. Now, eight months later in the midst of the deadly second wave, the United States is making its way towards three-hundred thousand COVID-19 deaths and the meat-packing industry continues to be a national breeding ground for the virus. <\/p>\n
Tyson Foods, the global meat processing company which accounts for approximately 20% of the beef, pork and chicken produced in the US, has been at the helm of these outbreaks. With a total of 145 production facilities in the country, the majority of which are in Arkansas, Tyson has become an example of how being slow to adopt CDC recommended procedures and precautions can cost lives. <\/p>\n
Magaly Licolli, Co-founder and Director at Venceremos \u2014a worker-based organization in Arkansas whose mission is to ensure the human rights of poultry workers\u2014 first became aware of the dangerous working conditions of these facilities when she worked at a community clinic in Springdale. <\/p>\n
\u201cMost of these workers are injured for life, and a lot of workers don\u2019t have access to healthcare. That\u2019s why they went to the community clinic where they needed a specialist because of the issues they developed from working in processing plants. I knew that immigrants were coming to the US to find a better life, but I never knew this was the life they had to encounter.\u201d<\/p>\n
Since the start of the pandemic, Magaly has been working with organizers on the ground to ensure poultry workers are guaranteed PPE, paid-sick leave, paid-quarantine leave, hazard pay, and social distancing policies are being implemented and upheld.<\/p>\n
Through several press releases, Tyson Foods Senior Vice President Scott Brook and other senior management team members at the company have applauded their internal efforts of CDC recommended protocol implementation, while also noting that community infections remain higher than company rates. According to Brook, the company is doing everything they can to protect the safety of their essential workers. <\/p>\n
According to Magaly, keeping poultry workers safe has never been a priority for this industry, especially in Springdale. \u201cOrganizing here in Arkansas, in the home of Tyson Foods, brings a lot of insecurity for workers to speak up, as they are often in the shadows. The entire community benefits from the suffering of these workers. Tyson provides money to thousands of nonprofits in Arkansas to service immigrants and the Marshallese people, but at the end of the day, charity does not bring justice to these workers and [donations] pretty much control the community\u2019s silence.\u201d<\/p>\n
The fear of retaliation for speaking out against companies such as Tyson is now a tactic of the past, as many front-line workers and activists on the ground are speaking out against years of injustice. According to a new report from BuzzFeed News, seven meat processing plants in Arkansas, owned by JBS, Tyson, and Cargill Tyson<\/a>, are accused of underreporting COVID-19 cases while declining the state health department\u2019s offer to conduct testing on-site. <\/p>\n Local news reports also show COVID-19 safety related policies came too late and at the expense of many lives. Despite press release announcements from Tyson Food\u2019s communications team, the dangerous conditions reported by activists on the ground show a different reality; a reality which has a disproportionate impact on the marginalized communities that make up the workforce at these processing plants. <\/p>\n
