Tyson Foods Vaccination mandate is working

Tyson Foods was one among the few corporations that did not face backlash for their employee vaccination mandate policy, in fact, they say that the mandate has been working quite well so far. On August 3rd the meat processing firm announced that they will require all their 120,000 employees in the United States to be vaccinated. They included their front-line workers in this list which at the time used to include only office workers. As a result of this, after nearly two months 91 percent of Tyson's workforce is not fully vaccinated. At this time of the announcement, less than half of the total employees were inoculated. Frontline workers of the company have till November 1st to get vaccinated while the office employees had to get vaccinated by October 1st. The mandate was endorsed by the United Food and Commercial Workers Union in return for benefits like paid sick leave. Tyson Foods unlike other big corporations with the same mandate has not been privy to lawsuits. 

Dr. Claudia Coplien, Tyson Food's Chief Medical Officer believes that a viral video of Caleb Reeves, a young Arkansas man who succumbed to COVID help generate awareness among the companies' young frontline workers. Especially considering the fact that Reeve's uncle worked at a Tyson plant, gave people a more personal connection to the story. One of their Poultry plants proclaimed to be 100 percent vaccinated from 78 percent vaccinated. Dr.Coplien also said that they visited Tyson plants to have small group conversations about the vaccines and clear doubts, this led Dr.Coplien to realize that a lot of people were just emotional or scared and need someone to talk to, once they had a conversation they were much more open to the idea.  

Source: The New York Times