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LULAC National President Meets With Tyson Foods CEO and Goes On-Site to Berry Street Poultry Plant on Fact Finding Mission

Nation’s Oldest and Largest Latino Civil Rights Organization Goes Inside Arkansas Meat Processing Facility to See Worker Conditions

WASHINGTON - The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) today announced that it held the first round of face-to-face talks with Tyson Foods as well as completed a walk-through of the company’s facility in Springdale, Arkansas to see what steps were being taken to protect worker safety amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

Domingo Garcia with Noel White

“The enemy here is the coronavirus,” says Domingo Garcia, National President of LULAC. “We traveled to the headquarters of Tyson Foods to make it clear to the company that nothing is more important to LULAC than worker safety. We went inside one of their biggest plants in the country ourselves to observe and talk to employees to find out what the company is doing to fight the virus that is infecting Juan y Maria, our nation’s essential workers in the meatpacking industry.”

Domingo Garcia - Tyson visit

By touring the Berry Street plant, LULAC was able to see the investment that Tyson has been making to create a safe working environment for its employees, as well as the efforts underway to protect the health and safety of its workers.

Domingo Garcia - Tyson Food Line

The LULAC team met with Noel White, CEO of Tyson Foods, who reviewed specific operational actions taken by the company as COVID-19 began to sweep across the United States. LULAC also learned of other changes being made in response to the influx of new information about the virus. Garcia spoke with White about a series of community demands centered around five areas of concern: regular free testing of all workers for COVID-19, complete personal protection equipment, line speed to labor adjustments, compensation for infected workers undergoing care, and assistance to families who have lost loved ones to the coronavirus.

After evaluating the preexisting safety protocols, the LULAC team left feeling optimistic about the success of those endeavors. Some of those standards were closely related to the community demands outlined by Garcia, including screenings upon plant entry, temperature checks for employees, ubiquitous in-language signage, an obligatory mask policy, social distance marker placements, dedicated cleaning for common areas, and hands-free water and sanitizer stations.

Domingo Garcia - Tyson Line Speed

Furthermore, Tyson spoke to the LULAC team about their ongoing efforts to make Tyson Foods’ plants safer. Some of those efforts involve COVID-19 onsite testing, contact tracing and health support, research and development for superior ventilated masks, over $100 million in bonus pay, hunger relief, and infrastructure across Tyson plants, and cooperation with local health agencies enabling Tyson to go beyond the CDC and OSHA’s recommended procedures.

Domingo Garcia and Hector Gonzales

“LULAC’s number one priority is taking every action we can to protect tens of thousands of workers to the fullest extent possible with what we know about the virus. It appears Tyson is making significant changes and investments to improve worker safety and America’s food supply. LULAC will work with Tyson Foods and other meat processing companies to help save as many people as possible from COVID-19. We are going to do what LULAC has done for 91 years: get the job done."

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About LULAC
The League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) is the nation’s largest and oldest civil rights volunteer-based organization that empowers Hispanic Americans and builds strong Latino communities. Headquartered in Washington, DC, with 1,000 councils around the United States and Puerto Rico, LULAC’s programs, services and advocacy address the most important issues for Latinos, meeting critical needs of today and the future. For more information, visit https://lulac.org/