Violence and racism on picket lines, and unsafe working conditions and harassment on the job aren’t the only problems Tyson causes. In fact, a law suit was filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission in August against Tyson for maintaining a “whites only” bathroom at its Alabama-based plant.
Tyson is also currently facing a national wage and hour lawsuit brought by a group of Alabama workers for failure to pay overtime wages. The suit charges the poultry giant with violating federal overtime provisions. The suit charges that Tyson fails to pay workers for all the time spent working on the line and time spent putting on and taking off required safety equipment such as gloves, hairnets, aprons, etc. The company could face fines of nearly $600 million in back pay to its employees.
Read about the many other illegal issues Tyson has faced:
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| Local 401 President Doug O'Halloran was taken to the hospital after Tyson officials forced his car off the road. |
October 2005
Royal Canadian Mounty Police (RCMP) charge Andrew Crocker, head of security at Lakeside, and Carey Kopp, the company's director of human resources, with five charges, including dangerous driving, criminal harassment, and intimidation, after a car chase which ended when Local 401 President Doug O'Halloran’s car was forced off the road and crashed in a ditch. Four other men with ties to the plant were also charged with dangerous driving in the incident.
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August 2005
U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) file a suit against Tyson’s Foods alleging that its Alabama-based facility maintained a “whites-only” bathroom and that managers sternly disciplined Black workers who complained about it. A “Whites Only” sign was posted above the bathroom, which was kept locked. Keys were distributed to white employees only. The EEOC’s lawsuit was prompted by Tyson’s failure to resolve the matter through regular conciliation channels.
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April 2005
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) sued Tyson Foods and former chairman and company patriarch Don Tyson for filing misleading disclosures from 1997 to 2003. Tyson Foods was forced to pay $1.5 million US in fines, while Don Tyson was ordered to pay a $700,000 US penalty. The SEC found that while Don Tyson was chairman, the company provided an estimated $3 million US in perquisites and personal benefits to Tyson, his wife, their daughters, and three close personal friends, including $8,000 for a horse, $20,000 for oriental rugs, $84,000 for lawn maintenance at the family's homes, and $203,675 in personal housekeeping services. The SEC held that many of those perks were unauthorized by the board, and not properly disclosed to shareholders.
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2005
Blood, Sweat and Fear, a recent report by Human Rights Watch, condemned Tyson for violating the basic human rights of its workers by allowing unsafe working conditions at many of its production facilities.
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2001
Tyson Foods and six company executives charged with running a massive ring to smuggle illegal aliens into the United States from Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala. After a two-and-a-half year investigation, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service alleged that Tyson had smuggled illegal immigrants to work at 15 Tyson plants in nine states. Undercover INS agents, who'd posed as "recruiters," testified that Tyson managers had asked them to smuggle in more than 2,000 workers. Two Tyson managers pleaded guilty. Another one committed suicide. In 2003, the company, and all the other defendants, including a Tyson regional vice-president, were acquitted. The jury found there was insufficient evidence that senior executives had known of the smuggling plan.
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February 2000
The company agreed to pay $230,000 to settle allegations of discriminatory hiring practices against women and minorities at its Forest, Miss., poultry plant. The administrative complaint stemmed from a compliance review of the plant conducted by the Labor Department's Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs. The agency's investigation found that, from January 1, 1996 through June 30, 1997, Tyson discriminated against qualified women who applied for entry-level laborer jobs and qualified African Americans who applied for craft positions.
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February 2000
Tyson's Henderson, Ky, complex was slapped by Kentucky OSHA with a record-breaking $269,000 in fines from citations for 73 serious health and safety violations.
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July 1999
Tyson Foods agreed to pay $2.3 million to settle sexual harassment claims at some of its Alabama plants. The payout was part of a record $10.79 million paid in fiscal 1999 by Alabama companies investigated by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
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1999
Seven Tyson Foods employees were killed on the job. No other poultry company reported fatalities this year--only Tyson. In July, 1999, James Dame, Jr. and Mike Hallum fell into an open pit of decomposing chicken parts and suffocated from the methane gas at Tyson's Robards, Ky., facility. On October 8, 1999, Charles Shepherd died from head trauma after a fall in the chiller room in the Berlin, Md., Tyson plant. There were two fatalities at the company's Harrisonburg, Va., poultry plant and two Tyson chicken catchers were killed during the summer, both from electrocution in chicken houses.
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1998
Tyson was fined $59,274, the maximum allowed at the time, for violating child labour laws after a 15-year-old boy was electrocuted and killed while working at a chicken slaughtering plant in Arkansas, and after a 14-year-old was seriously injured in a poultry processing plant in Missouri, when he fell into an auger and suffered severe nerve damage and second-degree burns to both legs. Both teens had been working late at night, long past the quitting time required by U.S. child labour laws.
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1997
Tyson Foods pleaded guilty to "making illegal gifts" to then-U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy, and paid $6 million U.S. in fines. The company was accused of giving Espy about $12,000 in illegal presents, including tickets to football and basketball games, and a scholarship for Espy's girlfriend. The company was also placed under probation for four years. Espy was later found not guilty.
