One of the world’s largest chicken producers, which is a key supplier to McDonald’s, is on trial in Tennessee accused of conspiracy to import illegal workers, mainly from Mexico, to work at its plants throughout America.
”This trial is about corporate greed,” said the prosecuting lawyer, John MacCoon, in his opening remarks at the trial in Chattanooga of Tyson Foods.
The prosecution claims that Tyson, which has a turnover of $23-billion, brought illegal workers into the country who could be paid low wages, would not receive sickness or injury benefits, and could be sacked without compensation.
The prosecution is demanding that, if convicted, the company forfeit its illegal profits, in the same way as drug dealers.
In the early 90s, according to the prosecution case, Tyson’s wages were so low that it struggled to recruit the workers it needed. Staff at the company then embarked on a policy of recruiting cheap labour, principally from Mexico but also from central American countries, and transporting them to plants in Tennessee, Arkansas, Virginia, North Carolina, Indiana and Missouri. It is alleged that false documents were supplied.
The trial comes in the wake of a massive undercover operation by the federal authorities that was completed in 2001 and resulted in Tyson being charged with racketeering and immigration law violations. According to the investigators, as many as one third of the workers at some Tyson plants were illegal immigrants.
At the end of the investigation, six former managers at Tyson’s plant in Shelbyville, Tennessee, were charged. One, Jimmy Rowland, a personnel manager, has committed suicide and two others have pleaded guilty and have agreed to give evidence against the company. The other three managers face trial along with the company.
If convicted, Tyson would face hefty fines and could also lose some of its lucrative government contracts.
Tyson’s position is that the illegal hiring was carried out by ”rogue” managers who have since been fired. ”There is no evidence of corporate effort to hire undocumented workers,” said a representative.
While the trial is essentially concerned with the issue of illegal workers, the case will also put the treatment of workers in the plants under scrutiny.
Tyson has long been a target of union and civil rights activists because of its employment practices. Last year, student activists mobilised Tyson workers for a separate lawsuit to try to force the company to compensate workers it had allegedly underpaid.
The company’s history is a classic entrepreneurial tale.
In 1931, according to company lore, a debt-ridden farmer called John Tyson drove from Springdale, Arkansas, to Chicago to deliver a load of 500 chickens and sold them for a profit of $235. Of this, $220 was sent home to pay his debts and buy another load of birds.
He gradually expanded into every part of the production process, buying a chicken hatchery, starting a commercial feed business and then his own trucking company. He moved into the processing business in the 50s.
Although John Tyson was killed in a 1967 car accident, the family company continued to thrive and started supplying McDonald’s with McNuggets — a concoction of reconstituted chicken made from a new breed of fowl with unusually large breasts, added to stabilisers and breads.
By 1994, the company had gone global, exporting to 54 countries and then merging in 1998 with its competitor, Hudson Foods.
The company’s ”core values” are ”truth and integrity”. According to its website: ”We serve as stewards of the animals, land and environment entrusted to us.”
Union activists in the major food workers’ union have campaigned over the past two years to publicise what they see as the exploitative work practices of Tyson in particular and the industry in general.
The union gained support from Jesse Jackson, and initiated a boycott of Tyson products at church functions.
Tyson has had its run-ins with the law before. In 1997, it was fined for giving illegal gifts to the then US agriculture secretary, Mike Espy, who served under President Clinton. The company pleaded guilty and paid $6-million in fines and costs.
The disposable workforce
– An estimated seven million illegal immigrants are in the US. Many are employed in the menial jobs Americans prefer to avoid.
– Because workers fear being deported, they are unlikely to complain about poor wages or conditions.
– Attempts to resolve the situation of undocumented workers were made by Mexico’s president, Vicente Fox, but September 11 ended plans to loosen border controls and create an amnesty which would have left workers less vulnerable.
– The meat processing industry is one of the most hazardous jobs in the US and firms have consequently had difficulty recruiting at wages of about $8 an hour, according to Greg Denier, of the United Food and Commercial Workers union.
”They are a disposable workforce,” said Denier. ”Fingers and arms can get cut off and they get repetitive strain injury.”
– Most illegally recruited workers have no idea that a company is obliged to compensate them if they are injured on the job.
”Lacerations are the most common injuries suffered by meatpackers, who often stab themselves or stab someone nearby,” wrote Eric Schlosser in his book Fast Food Nation. ”Although official statistics are not kept, the death rate among slaughterhouse sanitation crews is extraordinarily high. They are the ultimate in disposable workers: illegal, illiterate, impoverished, untrained. The nation’s worst job can end in just about the worst way — sometimes these workers are literally ground up and reduced to nothing.” – Guardian Unlimited Â