For the past seven years the Interfaith Worker Justice has fought to see poultry workers paid for all their hours worked. Thanks to the support of many labor and religious activists, the Department of Labor agreed to do investigations of the poultry industry. Those investigations led to an indictment of Tyson Foods in May of 2002 for violating Wage and Hour laws by not paying their workers for all the hours they worked. We are now asking you to write a letter to the CEO of Tyson Foods, John Tyson, to urge him to reach a settlement with the Department of Labor so their workers can receive their due back wages.

Some facts about Tyson Foods, Inc.:

• Tyson Foods, Inc., raked in a gross profit of almost $2 billion last year and a net income of $383 million, an increase of 435% over 2001. [Note that 2002 was a recession year in U.S. markets.]
  
• In Fiscal Year 2002 Tyson Foods doubled CEO John Tyson’s total pay while laying-off 1500 workers.
  
• A Department of Labor investigation in 2000 revealed that 100% of the Tyson plants they surveyed did not pay their workers for all the hours they worked.
  

The indictment of Tyson came after uncovering a history of refusing to pay their hard-working “team members” for the time it takes to perform required safety precautions, such as putting on and taking off special equipment. In the words of Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao found in the indictment of Tyson Foods, “we want to make sure they are getting paid what they deserve...” In May of 2002, Perdue Farms settled with the Department of Labor, agreeing to pay their workers back wages and to pay every hour they work in the future. However, instead of settling with the Department of Labor, Tyson continues to fight the indictment. By continuing to fight the indictment Tyson is essentially using millions of dollars stolen from roughly 70,000 workers to make John Tyson a richer man and to pay lawyers to fight a Labor Department lawsuit. Tell John Tyson to pay his workers for all of their work!

We are asking you to send a letter or fax to John Tyson requesting that Tyson Foods settle with the Department of Labor. See our sample letter. Should Tyson Foods refuse to settle, this will become part of a larger campaign.

Send to:

Mr. John Tyson
Chairman and CEO of Tyson Foods, Inc.
2210 West Oaklawn Drive
Springdale, Arkansas 72762-6999

Phone: (479) 290-4000
Fax: (479) 290-4028

Also, please send a copy of your letter to our address as listed above.

Tyson Fact Sheet

• In 2000, the U.S. Department of Labor found that 100 percent of the poultry plants it investigated, including several Tyson facilities, violated wage and hour laws. (USDOL) Read more
  
  
• In 1999, the Corporate Crime Reporter named Tyson as one of the “10 Worst Corporations of the Year” due to seven worker deaths and fines from the Occupational Health and Safety Administration at several plants. (Corporate Crime Reporter) Read more
  
  
• In December 2001, Tyson was indicted by the U.S. Department of Justice for conspiring to smuggle undocumented immigrants to work in its plants. The indictment stated that Tyson “cultivated a corporate culture in which the hiring of illegal alien workers was condoned in order to meet production goals and cut costs to maximize profits.” (USDOJ) Read more | A Response to the Tyson Indictment
  
  
• The annual turnover rate at Tyson processing plants is around 75 percent, reflecting the dangerous working conditions and low pay that workers face. (In These Times, March 19, 2001) Read more
  
  
• In 2001, Infact, a national grassroots corporate watchdog organization, nominated Tyson for induction into its Corporate Hall of Shame for Tyson’s environmental problems and for the health and safety abuses of workers in its plants. (Infact)
  
  
• After heavy lobbying of the state of Missouri by Tyson, Missouri began a program in 1995 that helped Tyson address its labor shortage by sending welfare recipients to Tyson to apply for jobs. In a pilot version of the program in Pettis County, any person who applied for welfare could receive no welfare benefits for 60 days if they refused a job at Tyson. (The Progressive, August 1998).
  
  
• In June 1999, six thousand Tyson workers signed on to a lawsuit in Alabama charging Tyson with violations totaling at least $100 million a year in back wages owed to workers. (United Food and Commercial Workers) Read more
  
  
• Documents filed by the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality reveal that since 1996, 88.5 percent of Tyson’s hog operations in the state have failed inspections, and violations have been documented in 46 of their 52 facilities. (Sierra Club) Read more
  
  
• In the largest violation of the Clean Water Act penalty in Maryland history, Hudson Foods, a subsidiary of Tyson Foods, agreed to pay a $6 million settlement for discharging fecal matter, nitrogen, ammonia, and other pollutants into Maryland waterways from its Berlin, MD plant. (Environmental Protection Agency) Read more
  
  
• In December 1997, Tyson Foods agreed to pay a $4 million fine for giving illegal gifts to U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Espy. The Department of Agriculture is responsible for regulating food safety, and its officials are prohibited from taking anything of value from the companies they are supposed to regulate. (Washington Post, October 1, 1998)

For more information or to join the movement for justice in our nation’s poultry industry:
Contact Elisabeth Solomon, Public Policy Director, at (773) 728-8400, ext. 42.