Meat-packer Tyson Foods said on Tuesday that it would require all its U.S. employees to be fully inoculated against COVID-19 in 2021, joining a growing list of employers who are making immunization a condition of further employment and will pay them a 200 dollars bonus to do so. The Springdale, Arkansas-based company said it had encouraged its worldwide 139000 employees to get inoculated, but only 56000 workers have been fully protected.

Tyson’s office employees face a deadline on 1st October to be fully immunized, while plant workers have until 1st November this year. Tyson’s President and CEO, Donnie King, said of the mandatory immunization requirement that they didn’t take that decision lightly.

Moreover, he told Tyson employees that they took that step because nothing is more vital than their team’s safety and health, and they thank their workers for the work they do every day to support Tyson, feed that country and their world.

We are prepared to deal with the surge in COVID-19 cases like never before.

Unlike a year ago, we have the ability to save lives and keep our economy growing. We know we can dramatically lower the cases in the country.

We can do this. Get vaccinated.

— President Biden (@POTUS) August 2, 2021

After individual employees are inoculated, the meat-packer company stated it would pay them a two-hundred-dollar bonus to encourage immunizations, similar to some other firms.

Springdale, Arkansas-based company has been hit hard by the COVID-19 pandemic, with criticizers saying Tyson, among others, hasn’t done sufficient to vaccinate its workers. Moreover, early in the epidemic in 2020, Tyson Foods was forced to shut some of its meat-processing plants amid a coronavirus outbreak.

American President Ordered Federal Employees To Get Vaccinated

In May 2021, the US federal administration said it was lawful for workers to require their employees to receive their COVID-19 vaccine doses.

Furthermore, with the increasing spread of more transmissible Delta variant of SARS-CoV-2, major companies requiring by day are inoculations before workers could resume offices in the upcoming weeks.

Joe Biden, the U.S. President, ordered over two million federal employees to get their shots into their arms without threatening to fire them if they didn’t get protected. However, he said workers would be required to undergo frequent testing for the coronavirus if they refuse to get vaccinated. But Tyson stated it would permit exceptions to the jab mandate for religious or medical reasons.

On Monday, Joe Biden said on Twitter that they know they could considerably lower the COVID cases in their country by getting vaccinated.

Furthermore, the number of immunizations in America had dropped for weeks, but with the spread of highly transmissible Delta variant, the vaccination toll is increasing again, to nearly 0.8 million on Sunday. But so is the new cases toll, to almost 85000 daily in the recent week, up from almost ten-thousand a day a month before.

However, some experts and analysts say the daily infections toll could reach 0.3 million in August.

The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), which represents twenty-four thousand Tyson employees, stated that it would be meeting with the meatpacker firm in the upcoming weeks to discuss the mandate and ensure that the employees’ rights are protected.

According to the Union, it encouraged employees to get inoculated but noted many concerns about the firm’s jab mandate. Almost 132 meatpacking employees who belonged to UFCW International have died after contracting coronavirus disease.

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