Tyson Foods featured in several recent employment-related stories
Is Tyson Foods joining Wal-Mart in big labor’s corporate-bad-guy hall of fame? Maybe not, and maybe it’s a coincidence, but I ran across three items about Tyson in the last week or so.
First, Wisconsin Ag Connection reports: “Union Claims that Tyson Foods is Violating Labor Laws”
The saga with the Tyson Foods strike in Jefferson is not over yet. . . . The union . . . has filed a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board claiming the company has refused to rehire many workers who went on strike for almost a year. [The union says] the strikers’ jobs have wrongly been taken by permanent replacement workers. . . .
An 11-month strike against the meatpacking plant in Jefferson ended in late January after workers accepted a four-year contract that differed little from the one that originally caused their walkout. . . .
If the labor board finds the replacement workers are temporary, the strikers could return to their jobs . . . . Read more
Two issues typically complicate such situations involving replaced strikers’ desire to return to work.
One is the issue mentioned here — whether they were hired on a temporary or permanent basis. The other is whether the strike was an economic strike or an unfair labor practice strike.
If the strikers were permanently replaced in an economic strike, their only right is to be placed on a preferential hiring list for future openings. If they were only temporarily replaced or if the strike was an unfair labor practice strike, they have a right to immediate return, displacing their replacement.
The second Tyson story is from the Tri-City Herald (Kennewick, Pasco and Richland, Washington): Workers Keep Union
Workers at the Tyson Fresh Meats Inc. beef plant in Wallula voted by a narrow margin Friday to keep Teamsters Local 556 as their union. . . .
[T]he close vote [708 to 657] underscored divisions among the approximately 1,500 plant workers over whether the outspoken union represents workers’ best interests. . . .
Tyson plant manager Ray McGaugh said . . . the company was “disappointed with the outcome of the decertification election,” which was the result of a petition started by a plant employee last year . . . .
“However,” McGaugh added, “we hope the close vote sends a strong signal to union leadership that hundreds of their members want a more cooperative, less combative relationship with the company.”. . .
A total of 1,365 votes were cast . . . , out of a pool of about 1,495 eligible voters, said Joan Abrevaya, field examiner for the National Labor Relations Board, which conducted the election. . . .
Pro-union workers have held up the union as their best hope for improving wages, benefits and working conditions at the plant. . . .
For workers who opposed the union, one concern was the possibility of losing their jobs if there’s ever a strike. . . . [T]he union’s monthlong wildcat strike in 1999 cost workers about $1,600 in lost wages. Read more
Such a close vote certainly undermines the union’s bargaining position. But the company clearly is not trusted.
The concerns about what it would do in the event of a strike seem justified in light of the above story involving strike replacements.
It is interesting to note that as with other elections, voter turnout is sometimes crucial in union representation elections. As employers like to remind employees, it is a majority of actual voters, not eligible voters, that determines the results.
There were more than enough non-voting eligible voters to swing the election the other way if a solid majority of them had voted against the union.
The final Tysons story, from Findlaw (AP - Tom Parsons), is: “Tyson Foods Fined $436G in Worker’s Death”
Tyson Foods Inc. . . . was fined $436,000 on Friday in the asphyxiation death of a worker at a Texarkana plant.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued the citations after investigating the Oct. 10 death . . . at the company’s River Valley animal feed plant. . . .
OSHA said [the employee] was repairing leaks in equipment used to process chicken feathers to make a pet-food additive, when he inhaled hydrogen sulfide, . . . “a poisonous gas created by decaying organic matter.” . . .
According to the agency, the willful violations included failure to protect workers from exposure to excessive amounts of hydrogen sulfide; not having a proper, written hazard-communication program; not properly identifying hazardous chemicals; and not properly training workers to deal with hydrogen sulfide. . . . Read more
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