Tyson Foods wants to require vaccines for all its workers. Union leaders are reluctant.
In light of the highly contagious Delta variant, companies like Disney, Google, Netflix, and Walmart have announced plans to mandate vaccinations for employees heading into the workplace. Tyson Foods is the latest company to require vaccines for its workers, reports The New York Times, noting that half of its workforce is currently unvaccinated. The poultry supplier is offering its frontline workers $200 to verify that they are fully vaccinated by Nov. 1. But union leaders haven’t gotten on board yet: Marc Perrone, the president of United Food and Commercial Workers union, which represents 24,000 Tyson employees, said he’s not supporting employer mandates until the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officially approves the vaccines (they’re currently temporarily cleared through emergency use authorizations). Peter Marks, the FDA’s top vaccine official, said the agency is “in a sprint” to complete the approval process, and other officials have suggested that the Pfizer vaccine could be approved within a matter of weeks.
