(Daily360.com) Tyson Foods is facing both a consumer backlash and loss of financial backing over recent hiring decisions.
News broke last week that the giant food company was laying off just under 1,300 workers from a pork plant in the town of Perry, Iowa. Terry has a population of only 8,000 meaning this closure is likely to financially devastate the community.
To make matters worse from a public relations standpoint, news also broke that Tyson was looking to hire thousands of illegal aliens to work for them. Not only are they seemingly prioritizing the newly arrived foreign labor, the company is also offering them legal counsel at company expense to help them acquire and maintain visas and green cards.
Upon hearing the news, a large investing group called American Conservative Values Fund (ACVF) announced they were pulling $79 million and divesting from Tyson. ACVF’s CEO Bill Flaig, said he will no longer buy stock in Tyson because he believes politically conservative investors must use their financial leverage to fight the “woke liberal takeover” of the United States.
Tyson Foods, which is headquartered in Arkansas, said they were not firing Americans as a means to hire a foreign workforce. They added that they are not hiring illegal aliens but are recruiting “newcomers” with valid work permits. The $54 billion food giant did not offer any specific details about the Iowa firings or other recent downsizing in Arkansas, Virginia, and Indiana.
Tyson has been recruiting foreign labor from cities like New York by attending job fairs. At one such fair the company recently enticed dozens of migrants from Columbia, Venezuela and Mexico to relocate Tennessee for work at a Tyson factory. While Tyson laid off thousands of American workers, the company is said to be trying to hire another 42,000 asylum seeking aliens. This would double the 42,000 foreign-born labor workers the company already employs among its 120,000 employees.
Tyson may be part of a larger trend as labor statistics show that between July and August of 2023, 1.2 million native-born Americans lost their jobs while 668,000 jobs were given to foreign-born people. Tyson’s CEO, Donnie King, who makes $13 million per year, has not commented about the firings but has been a political donor to the likes of Nikki Haley and Joe Biden in the past.
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