Tyson Foods says 91% of its workers are vaccinated

When Tyson Foods announced Aug. 3 that it would require coronavirus vaccines for all 120,000 of its U.S. employees, it was notable because it included front-line workers at a time when corporate mandates applied primarily to office workers. At the time, less than half its workforce was inoculated.

Nearly two months later, 91 percent of Tyson’s U.S. workforce is fully vaccinated, said Dr. Claudia Coplein, the company’s chief medical officer, who spoke about the results of its policy.

Tyson did not release vaccination rates by type of worker, but “certainly the vaccination rate amongst our front-line workers was lower than our office-based workers at the beginning of this,” Coplein said.

The Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents several thousand Tyson workers, endorsed the mandate in return for more benefits, such as paid sick leave. Front-line workers have until Nov. 1 to get vaccinated (or request an exemption), while the company’s roughly 6,000 office workers have until Friday to do so.

Tyson said about 91 percent of its 31,000 unionized employees are now vaccinated, matching the company’s overall rate. Unlike some other big companies, Tyson has not faced any lawsuits over its mandate, but it has lost a handful of employees over that mandate, a number that may increase as the deadline nears.

One of the company’s poultry plants achieved a 100 percent vaccination rate, from 78 percent, after COVID hit close to home. A viral video about Caleb Reeves, a young Arkansas man who died of COVID-19, helped to highlight the risk of the virus to young people, “and we have many young front-line workers,” Coplein said.

Reeves’ uncle worked at a Tyson plant, and the video “gave them a personal connection to say, ‘Hey, that could be my family, too,’” Coplein said.

Fortune 500 companies and the White House’s COVID task force have 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 mandatory.

Tyson expects that when OSHA outlines more details and a timeline for mandates, which could take weeks, more companies will announce vaccine requirements. When that happens, the options will be limited for those who quit (or are let go) because of a mandate.