By: Kaitlin Garza
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (UATV) – Tyson Foods announced last month it would be closing down its Van Buren chicken processing plant officially on May 12, 2023.
This closure will cause the loss of over nine hundred jobs, which a majority of belong to members of the city’s Hispanic immigrant community.
After the decision to close the facility was made, workers spent a month unaware of what would happen to them after the plant finally stopped production.
Workers soon discovered that they would only be receiving a compensation of a thousand dollars and be forced to sell their vacation times at a rate of 60%. Those who had sustained workplace injuries and were receiving medical treatment through the company would also no longer receive services after the closure.
“They left us feeling like we were some type of disposable plate they could just throw away,” Marleeny Vaquerano said, “Like we had no value.”
Vaquerano has worked at the Van Buren plant for over 15 years and said that these discoveries of inequality, along with workers finding out supervisors would be taking away nearly six times the amount of compensation as them. This inevitably pushed workers to start seeking out justice.
Throughout the pandemic, Vaquerano said the company pushed the ideas of family values and relationships heavily as many workers perished due to COVID-19.
“To Tyson we’re supposed to be a family and be equal to each other,” Vaquerano said. “Where is the family now though, how is this fair, how are we still equal?”
Venceremos, a non-profit organization that works to ensure the safety and dignity of poultry workers in the state, began working closely with Vaquerano and hundreds of other workers looking for justice.
Director of the organization, Magaly Licolli said that despite being scared of what would happen, workers were eager to start organizing a protest and strike.
“Workers were determined to keep going on a strike because we were there,” Licolli said. “Tyson knew they were not alone, that people were watching them, and they had to be careful.”
The strike began on April 10 and lasted for five days until workers took their list of demands in a petition to the corporate office in Springdale.
The workers were demanding Tyson meet four of their needs:
- The Payout of accrued vacation time at 100% value.
- A severance package based on time of employment.
- Safe conditions & accountability for injuries on the job.
- Equal treatment and no discrimination.
So far Tyson has agreed to meet the four main demands of protestors, but the future of many of the workers remains unknown.
For Vaquerano, the future is somewhere far away from Tyson facilities and the poultry business. After May, Vaquerano is planning to attend community college to improve her English and begin looking for new and different job opportunities.
The want to stay away from the business, is something Vaquerano said is the case for most of her coworkers.
“They don’t plan on returning to work for a plant like Tyson either because everyone’s upset,” Vaquerano said. “A lot of them have cried and felt depressed after seeing the way that they treated us.”
To learn more about the petition and how to donate to the Tyson workers on any of the Venceremos social media pages.