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When Tyson Foods announced on August 3 that it would require coronavirus vaccines for all of its 120,000 U.S. employees, it was remarkable because it included frontline workers at a time when corporate mandates applied mainly to office workers. At the time, less than half of its workforce was vaccinated.
Almost two months later, 91% of Tyson’s U.S. workforce is fully vaccinated, said Dr. Claudia Coplein, Tyson’s chief medical officer, who spoke to the DealBook newsletter about the results of her policy.
Tyson did not publish vaccination rates by type of worker, but “the vaccination rate among our frontline workers was certainly lower than that of our office workers at the start of this period,” said Dr Coplein.
The United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents several thousand workers at Tyson, approved the mandate in exchange for more perks, like paid sick leave. Frontline workers have until Nov. 1 to get vaccinated (or apply for an exemption), while the company’s roughly 6,000 office workers have until Friday to do so.
Tyson said about 91% of its 31,000 unionized workers are now vaccinated, which is the company’s overall rate. Unlike other large companies, Tyson was not prosecuted during her tenure, but she lost a handful of employees during her tenure, a number that could increase as the ‘deadline is approaching.
One of the company’s poultry factories reached a 100 percent vaccination rate, up from 78 percent, after Covid struck near home. A viral video on Caleb Reeves, a young man from Arkansas who died of Covid, helped highlight the risk of the virus to young people, “and we have a lot of young frontline workers,” said Dr Coplein . Mr Reeves’ uncle worked at a factory in Tyson, and the video “gave them a personal connection to say, ‘Hey, that could be my family too,'” Dr Coplein said.
Tyson executives visited factories to have small group conversations about vaccines. “It is important to recognize that disinformation exists,” said Dr Coplein. Some questions she hears regularly are whether the vaccination will affect fertility or pregnancy (evidence suggests not).
“The most powerful conversations took place when I sat down with someone who was scared or emotional or hesitant to get the vaccine,” she said, “and they really needed someone. one to listen to them with empathy. “
Fortune 500 companies and the White House Covid task force reached out to Tyson to discuss the company’s experience, particularly after the White House asked the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to order large employers to make vaccination compulsory.
Tyson expects that when OSHA outlines more details and a timeline for mandates, which could take weeks, more companies will announce vaccine requirements. When this happens, options will be limited for those who resign (or are fired) because of a tenure.
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