As people have heard, new variants of COVID-19 are more contagious, more deadly and responsible for most cases in America today. In some communities, doctors and hospitals are once again overwhelmed, while the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is reporting nearly all hospitalizations and deaths in the U.S. are among those who are unvaccinated. It is abundantly clear that getting vaccinated is the single most effective thing we can do to protect ourselves, our families and our communities.

So today, like many other businesses, we are taking steps to protect all of these things by requiring all U.S. team members to be fully vaccinated. Team members must be vaccinated by the following dates:

• All Tyson leadership (officers and above) by September 24, 2021
  • All team members in office by October 1, 2021
  • All other team members by November 1, 2021
  • All new hires must be fully vaccinated prior to their start date
  • Team members that are members of a union will be subject to the results of union bargaining on this issue

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.

We did not take this decision lightly. 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.