Tyson Fires Two Meatpacking Workers After Video's Release
October 28 2015 - 5:20PM
Dow Jones News
Tyson Foods Inc. fired two employees at a Mississippi
meatpacking plant after an animal-rights group released video
footage showing workers improperly shackling and slaughtering
chickens.
Mercy for Animals secretly recorded Tyson workers tossing and
punching birds and ripping the heads off some chickens, which were
improperly shackled and had missed the kill blade designed to slit
their throats, the group said Wednesday.
The undercover investigation at Tyson's Carthage, Miss.,
facility marked the fourth such Mercy for Animals probe involving
Tyson, the largest U.S. meatpacker by sales and the biggest chicken
processor. The group called for Tyson to implement "meaningful
animal welfare requirements" at its farms and plants.
A Tyson spokesman responded by saying, "We do not believe the
behavior shown in this video by the two team members we have now
terminated is representative of the actions of the thousands of
workers we employ across the country."
Mercy for Animals' previous Tyson videos focused on
independently owned farms supplying chickens or pigs to the
Springdale, Ark., company. In August, Tyson and McDonald's Corp.,
one of the meatpacker's largest customers, severed ties with a
Tennessee poultry farm after Mercy for Animals released video
footage of chickens being stabbed, clubbed and crushed to death.
The farm supplied chickens to a nearby Tyson plant that produced
chicken McNuggets and other products for McDonald's.
Along with its release Wednesday of the 2½ -minute video, Mercy
for Animals said it filed affidavits this week asking a Leake
County, Miss., court to pursue misdemeanor criminal charges against
Tyson and six employees. The group alleges the workers and Tyson
violated a state animal cruelty statute on 33 counts, and that the
behavior documented is "ongoing and systemic."
"This culture of cruelty and neglect cannot be allowed to
continue," said Matt Rice, the animal welfare group's director of
investigations.
Typically in U.S. poultry plants, birds are suspended upside
down by their feet to guide them to a room where they are stunned
with electricity to render them senseless, and then their throats
are cut.
Mercy for Animals is among animal-welfare groups calling on
companies like Tyson to change slaughter practices. They argue a
method called controlled atmosphere stunning, which removes oxygen
from the air instead of using electricity, could eliminate animal
suffering.
The Tyson spokesman said the company has conducted research on
other methods of slaughter, and has "not found them to be more
humane than conventional electrical stunning." But he said the
company believes the other methods are worthy of further study.
Write to Kelsey Gee at kelsey.gee@wsj.com and Jacob Bunge at
jacob.bunge@wsj.com
Subscribe to WSJ: http://online.wsj.com?mod=djnwires
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
October 28, 2015 17:05 ET (21:05 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2015 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Tyson Foods (NYSE:TSN)
Historical Stock Chart
From Jun 2024 to Jul 2024
Tyson Foods (NYSE:TSN)
Historical Stock Chart
From Jul 2023 to Jul 2024