(Reuters) - An executive for meat producer Tyson Foods said in an interview the company expects to hire 52,000 people in 2024 due to high turnover in its workforce of over 100,000 US employees, not that Tyson would hire thousands of “illegal immigrants” to replace 1,200 workers at an Iowa plant it’s closing, as suggested by social media posts.
A Facebook post says: “Tyson foods fired 1200 American workers so they could hire 42000 illegal immigrants. Boycott Tyson!”
However, the posts repeat misinterpretations in a now-redacted article citing the executive’s comments about a small number of asylum seekers, authorized to work in the U.S., which the company did hire.
The company responded to the posts in a statement on its website saying: “Any insinuation that we would cut American jobs to hire immigrant workers is completely false.”
TYSON PLANT CLOSURES
Tyson Foods announced on March 11 that it will permanently close a pork plant in Perry, Iowa, in June, which will eliminate jobs for around 1,200 workers.
The company, which has seen slowing demand for some products after the end of the COVID-19 pandemic, has also announced the closures of six chicken plants over the past year and has laid off corporate employees.
Bloomberg reported on March 11 that Tyson Foods employs about 42,000 immigrants among its 120,000 employees in the U.S.
The company also hired 17 asylum seekers in February and 70 more in March, according to Bloomberg.
The Bloomberg article quoted Garrett Dolan, associate director of human resources for Tyson Foods, who said that the company would like to hire another 42,000 immigrants if it could find them.
Dolan is also quoted as saying that the company expects to lose 40% of the 100,000 employees each year due to the high turnover rate in these roles and plans to hire about 52,000 people total in 2024.
MISINTERPRETED COMMENTS
Dolan’s statements were misrepresented in a March 13 article by Scripps News headlined, “Tyson Foods wants to hire 52,000 asylum seekers for factory jobs,” which has since been redacted for containing “serious factual inaccuracies.”
“We do not currently have 52,000 job openings or any of the various numbers being reported, which are inaccurate,” a Tyson Foods spokesperson told Reuters in an email.
On the company website, a statement responding to the misquoted figures said: “In recent days, there has been a lot of misinformation in the media about our company, and we feel compelled to set the record straight. Any insinuation that we would cut American jobs to hire immigrant workers is completely false.”
The company added that it is “strongly opposed to illegal immigration” and participates in two U.S. government programs, E-Verify and the Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers (IMAGE) program.
ELIGIBLE EMPLOYEES
Refugees and asylees are authorized to work in the U.S., according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services(USCIS).
Immigrants legally in the U.S. as well as U.S. citizens must verify their eligibility to work by completing Form I-9 along with their employers when they start a new job.
E-Verify allows employers to electronically verify the employment eligibility of applicants by comparing information from the employees to records from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Social Security Administration (SSA).
The IMAGE program is a Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) program that provides employers with trainings and education on employment topics such as “anti-discrimination, fraudulent documents, E-Verify, forced labor, and overview on child labor,” according to its website.
“Knowingly hiring an illegal workforce does disqualify a business from becoming a member,” the IMAGE program states on its site. “Knowingly hiring undocumented noncitizens is a crime and will be penalized.”
VERDICT
Misleading. Tyson Foods did not fire 1,200 American employees at a plant in Perry, Iowa to hire 42,000 workers who are in the U.S. illegally.