Tyson Foods Response to My Email
Thank you for your message. Most of the more than 100 plants owned by
Tyson Foods were in operation Monday. For business reasons, we closed
about a dozen plants. Rather than experience a disruption in business
due to the absence of workers, we opted to close certain plants and
make up for the loss of production by shifting production to Saturday at
some locations. We did not encourage workers to participate in the rallies.
Contrary to what you may have heard, Tyson Foods has zero tolerance for
employing people who are not authorized to work in the U.S. We use all
available tools provided by the U.S. government to help verify the
documents of the people we hire.
Tyson voluntarily participates in the Department of Homeland Security's
Basic Pilot program, which allows us access to government databases
that assist in the documentation authentication process. We train our
hiring managers on proper employment documentation procedure and work to increase their awareness of identification and documentation fraud. We regularly audit our hiring process including work authorization
documents and also use an independent, outside company, which conducts
its own audit of our hiring practices.
The Basic Pilot is effective in helping us verify the Social Security
numbers of the people we hire. Unfortunately, the program has
limitations. It does not currently help us in cases of identity fraud
when an individual assumes someone else's name by using their Social
Security number. This is another reason we support efforts to reform
immigration law. If the government is going to continue place
employersin the role of policing who has proper work documentation, then it should give companies more tools to do the job.
Gary Mickelson