Tyson Foods joins federal ‘lawful workforce’ program

Springdale-based Tyson Foods has joined a federal program designed to ensure the company maintains a “lawful workforce.”

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Tyson Foods’ officials announced Thursday (Jan. 20) that the global food processing and distribution company has signed the “ICE Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers” (IMAGE) agreement.

Tyson Foods Senior Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer Ken Kimbro and ICE Director John Morton signed the agreement during a ceremony at ICE headquarters in Washington D.C.

According to an ICE statement, Tyson Foods, with 100,000 U.S. employees, is the first major food company to become a full member of ICE’s IMAGE program.

“IMAGE is a voluntary program that allows businesses to partner with ICE as part of their efforts to maintain an authorized workforce and protect themselves from the use of fraudulent identity documents by current or prospective employees,” noted the ICE statement. “Undocumented workers create vulnerabilities in today’s marketplace by presenting false documents to gain employment, completing applications for fraudulent benefits, and stealing identities of legal United States workers. To combat this, ICE initiated the IMAGE program in 2006.”

The program also “focuses on holding employers accountable” who knowingly employ illegal workers “to minimize operating costs and boost profits.”

“We believe our participation in IMAGE confirms Tyson uses best hiring practices to maintain a lawful workforce,” Kimbro said in the statement. “We use all available tools provided by the U.S. government to verify the documents of the people we hire. We’ve also gone beyond government tools, spending millions of dollars over the years on such things as training, computer systems and help from outside consultants to make sure we’re employing people who are authorized to work in our country.”

Tyson Food’s requirements to participate in IMAGE included being subject to an I-9 — basic employment firm all companies must complete for each employee — audit. The requirements also included programs Tyson Foods had previously engaged, such as:
• Conducting regular self-assessments or internal audits of its hiring activities. The company also uses an independent, outside company to conduct its own audits of the company’s hiring practices;
• Participation in the online government employment verification program known as E-Verify since 1998; and,
• Company training of employment managers on the hiring process, proper completion of the I-9 form and on document examination and fraud detection.

Tyson Foods and the federal government have not always been on the same page — literally and figuratively — with respect to worker status and documentation.

In 2001, the Department of Justice gained a 36-count indictment from a federal grand jury that alleged Tyson execs and plant managers were engaged in a conspiracy to smuggle illegal workers to their U.S. plants. At the time, it was the first time the federal government sought such action against a company as large as Tyson Foods.

After about two years of often pointed public and courtroom exchanges between company and government lawyers, a federal judge dismissed 24 of the 36 counts, and a jury acquitted Tyson Foods on the remaining counts.

The company was also targeted in a 2008 class-action lawsuit alleging that Tyson Foods depressed wages by hiring illegal immigrants at eight processing plants. That case was eventually dismissed by a federal judge.