POULTRY & PANDEMIC: Meat industry workers and COVID-19

June 1, 2021 - It was 32 years ago that Southern Exposure — the print forerunner to Facing South — set out to document conditions in the region's fast-growing poultry industry. Many of the problems it reported on continue today. And as our recent reporting has shown, the pandemic created new challenges for the industry's changing workforce while also presenting opportunities for organizing in an industry that's long resisted unionization.

June 1, 2021 - Licolli co-founded the group Venceremos to organize poultry workers in Northwest Arkansas and now serves as its director, a position she previously held at the now-defunct Northwest Arkansas Workers' Justice Center. In this oral history interview, she talks to Facing South about her upbringing in Mexico, how her theater education plays into her organizing strategy, sexism's impact on worker organizing, and lessons she's learned through her work.

May 12, 2021 - Poultry giant Tyson Foods Inc., the third-largest employer in Arkansas, accounted for nearly one-third of the state's 9,065 sickened workers across all industries over nearly a year of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to an analysis by reporting project Arkansascovid.

May 12, 2021 - El gigante avícola Tyson Foods Inc., el tercer empleador más grande de Arkansas, reportó 2.866 casos de COVID-19 en sus lugares de trabajo, esta figura es casi un tercio de los 9.065 trabajadores enfermos del estado en todas las industrias desde el 19 de mayo de 2020 hasta el 8 de abril de 2021, según un análisis de Arkansascovid.com.

April 16, 2021 - Virginia-based Valley Proteins is one of the largest U.S. rendering companies, turning slaughterhouse waste like blood and bones into profits. Buoyed by the unionizing efforts of Amazon workers in Alabama, the company's drivers are organizing in North Carolina — and they've already won concessions.

January 28, 2021 - The COVID-19 pandemic has not ended in the nation's meat and poultry processing facilities. Here's what organizers and advocates say the new administration can do to help keep workers and their communities safe.

December 9, 2020 - Employees of a Springdale, Arkansas, processing plant owned by George's, one of the top U.S. chicken producers, are pressing the company to re-implement staggered shifts and make social distancing possible. The walkout, which the workers plan to continue until their demands are met, was the first such action by poultry workers in the state, which leads the nation in poultry production.

December 10, 2020 - Empleados de George's, Inc. en Springdale, Arkansas dicen que la compañía necesita re-implementar turnos escalonados y hacer posible el distanciamiento social en la planta de transporte vivo de la compañía.

November 19, 2020 - Large poultry processors like Tyson have come under public fire for failing to protect their workers from COVID-19. But smaller poultry companies have had the same problems — and much less scrutiny.

August 20, 2020 - Emails obtained by Facing South reveal that as workers and community advocates begged for the closure of poultry plants with outbreaks, government and company officials worked closely to present a united front — and keep them open.

July 13, 2020 - A coalition of food system justice groups joined forces to file an administrative complaint accusing Tyson and JBS of violating Title VI of the Civil Rights Act by failing to adequately protect their predominantly Black and brown workforces from COVID-19.

June 24, 2020 - As novel coronavirus cases rise in poultry plants near the meat-processing giant's headquarters in Northwest Arkansas, family members of workers say the company takes better care of their chickens than they do their employees.

June 1, 2020 - Poultry plants in Northwest Arkansas are seeing a surge in cases of the novel coronavirus. Worker advocates are demanding they be shut down, despite President Trump's executive order that they remain open.