Economy called key in union's Georgia contract with Tyson

In this Oct. 28, 2009, file photo, a Tyson Foods, Inc., truck is parked at a food warehouse in Little Rock. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston, File)
In this Oct. 28, 2009, file photo, a Tyson Foods, Inc., truck is parked at a food warehouse in Little Rock. (AP Photo/Danny Johnston, File)

The union representing hundreds of poultry plant workers in south Georgia recently negotiated a better pay and benefits deal with Tyson Foods, a move the union's president said helps the processing plant's 1,800 workers and potentially helps thousands more workers in the region and, eventually, other states.

An employer who increases wages and improves benefits will attract attention and can lead other companies to make similar changes to accommodate employees and secure a workforce, said Edgar Fields, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union for the southeast region, which represents 10,000 poultry workers across four states.

"Sometimes other employers will try to improve what they are doing to keep their employees from wanting a union," Fields said.

Georgia and Arkansas are the two leading U.S. poultry producing states and the poultry industry generates billions of dollars in annual cash receipts and supports more than 100,000 jobs in each state, according to their Farm Bureau agencies.

They also are right-to-work states, a barrier for unions that represent plant workers.

"Every time we get near the end of a contract, workers want improvements in pay, benefits, safety and working conditions," said Steve Gelios, president of the United Food and Commercial Workers union's 2008 local in Little Rock.

What helped during negotiations for better pay and benefits at Tyson's plant in Camilla, Ga., about 50 miles north of Tallahassee, Fla., was the state of the current economy. With a low unemployment rate, companies are doing what they can to retain workers. Because of that, Gelios said conditions have been good for unions.

"It's actually probably the best we've had to organize because they can't afford to lose anyone," he said.

Key items the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union negotiated for, and received, were annual raises during the contract of up to $1.50 per hour for general workers, up to $2.50 per hour for live hang workers, additional raises based on seniority; a reduction in health care costs; and counting personal days as time worked for overtime purposes.

The three-year contract was ratified on Saturday, after eight months of negotiations with Tyson, which acquired the Camilla processing plant through Keystone Foods last fall.

Fields, who led the union's negotiations, said "the contract expired in the middle of Tyson acquiring the company."

During that period, concerns bubbled about the upcoming contract under Tyson ownership. Overall, Fields said workers at the Camilla plant, which does further chicken processing for customers such as McDonald's, were happy with the results. About 97 percent of the union's members voted to ratify the contract.

One foreseeable outcome from the union's effort is that it could act like ammunition for chicken plant workers across the country, as they speak up for better wages and work conditions.

The next time negotiations arise "those employees may be aware, and may say I want the same thing as them, or things like that," Fields said.

However, Gelios said that is not usually the case "because every geographic area is different."

According to 2018 data from the Labor Department, poultry line workers earned on average $12.58 per hour in Arkansas compared to $11.83 in Georgia.

When asked about concerns of companies eliminating workers in response to increased costs for wage and benefit gains, Fields said, "I don't see that."

"If you pay them better and take better care of them, you have more senior workers," he said. With less turnover rates, companies also won't be spending as much on training costs.

What meatpackers, retailers and transporters are doing is reducing their workforces through technological changes. Decades ago, meatpackers had 60 to 70 people cutting wings or thighs on the lines, Gelios said.

"Now the machines do half the work," he said.

Despite technological advancements, poultry and meat industries, notorious for high turnover rates, still rely on hundreds of thousands of processing-line workers, according to the National Center for Farmworker Health. About half of the poultry processing workers are Hispanic, half are women and a quarter do not possess the legal documents to work in the U.S.

In Arkansas, where several processing plants are in rural areas with tight labor pools, meatpackers struggle even more to keep a steady stream of workers inside the plants. To compete with a nearby Tyson plant, Gelios said Wayne Farms talked about busing workers from Fort Smith and Russellville to fill its plant in Danville in Yell County.

Wayne Farms, he said, is "contracting with temp services out of Puerto Rico" to fill the plant.

"They're not easy jobs," Gelios said. "They're cold, dirty and hard manual labor with a lot of repetitive motion."

Of the 90 USDA-inspected meat, poultry and egg processing facilities in Arkansas, the Little Rock-based union represents about 3,000 poultry workers at four processing plants owned by Wayne Farms and Tyson Foods. Three of them belong to Tyson, with one in Noel, Mo.

Gelios estimated there's "10 times that, that aren't organized."

Right-to-work laws across the southeast region prohibit labor unions and employers from requiring workers to pay union dues as a condition of employment. For example, Gelios said member dues are about $9 a week, or roughly $468 a year.

"They like the situation in non-union plants, because they can dictate the rules," he said about the state's processors.

But in recent years, Gelios has noticed a shift from employers to make their work conditions better to retain workers in response to declining unemployment rates.

"Right now conditions are the other way around," he said. "We are in a better position because companies can't afford to lose their work."

Business on 04/19/2019

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