Tyson is following up its mandate that employees get vaccinated with a carrot: a chance for chicken-plant employees to win $10,000 a week for the next five weeks if they've received at least one dose of the vaccine.
Only the employees at nearly 50 U.S. Tyson chicken plants are eligible; the company's beef, pork and prepared foods plants are offering other monetary incentives.
"This in addition to … an enterprise-wide $200 thank-you for team members who are vaccinated," spokesperson Derek Burleson told us. "Each Tyson business unit approaches employee engagement differently and has the ability to provide incentives leaders think will work."
Earlier this month, even before the FDA gave full approval to the Pfizer vaccine, Tyson announced it would require all of its U.S. employees to be vaccinated by Nov. 1.
CEO Donnie King's Aug. 3 announcement gave these deadlines:
- All Tyson leadership (officers and above) by Sept. 24
- All team members in office by Oct. 1
- All other team members by Nov. 1
The company has hosted about 100 onsite vaccination clinics at its plants this year.
"To our frontline team members: once you are fully vaccinated, and verified in our Vaccination Verification Program, you will receive $200 as thank you for doing your part to keep us all safe, subject to ongoing discussions with our unions," King wrote.
"We did not take this decision lightly," King concluded. "We have spent months encouraging our team members to get vaccinated – today, under half of our team members are. We take this step today because nothing is more important than our team members’ health and safety, and we thank them for the work they do, every day, to help us feed this country, and our world."
