Conservative Groups Begin Ban On Tyson Foods After Firing Americans To Hire Migrants
The backlash continues to grow against Tyson Foods and their multiple brands after the company fired 1,500 American workers only to partner with a refugee group to hire migrants and refugees instead.
Already, #BanTyson has been trending for days on social media as individual Americans say they won't purchase any of their products. Things have now escalated, however, as even Wall Street is cautioning people that want to buy Tyson Foods stock, saying that it's at risk of losing significant value.
On Monday, the American Conservative Values ETF - which is an exchange fund managed by Ridgeline Research has placed a "refuse to buy" rating on Tyson Food's stock due to their "woke decision" to sell out hard-working Americans.
IS TYSON FOODS THE NEW BUD LIGHT?
"We believe Tyson’s management has blundered into a political minefield (and should have known better)," Ridgeline founder and CEO Bill Flaig told Fox Business on Monday.
"The risk of alienating a significant percentage of their customers outweighs any potential economic benefit. In a recent Pew Research poll, 80% of U.S. adults say the U.S. government is doing a bad job of handling the migrant influx," Flaig continued.
Last week, Tyson Foods shut down one of their plants in a small town in Iowa, costing more than 1,200 of the 8,000 residents their jobs. Just days later, however, the company announced an initiative to hire over 30,000 migrants - as well as allegedly PAY FOR THEIR LEGAL COURT BILLS, housing and more. Tyson then reportedly held a job fair in NYC for migrants for the new positions.
In recent weeks, Tyson announced that they partnered with the Tent Partnership for Refugees, whose objective is to integrate migrants, refugees, and asylum-seekers into the workforce. The same workforce that Tyson fired over a thousand American workers at to very well be replaced by refugees in this program. That is at the heart of the matter and why many people are upset, which is Ridgeline's Flaig expanded on with Fox Business.
"We have seen the negative impact of alienating customers recently with Bud Light and Target and by divesting we are protecting our shareholders," Flaig argued as to why the finance company downgraded Tyson's stock. Bud Light lost over $1 billion last year.
SHOULD PEOPLE BOYCOTT TYSON FOODS?
It's important to note that, yes, many companies hire illegal immigrants and pay them under the table at lower wages - the restaurant and delivery industry thrives on that, for example. But what Tyson is doing is turning that process into a legal one that would institutionalize it for tens of thousands of migrants.
In a statement, a spokesperson for Tyson Foods argued they are against illegal immigration.
In recent days, there has been a lot of misinformation in the media about our company, and we feel compelled to set the record straight. Any insinuation that we would cut American jobs to hire immigrant workers is completely false.
Tyson Foods is strongly opposed to illegal immigration, and we led the way in participating in the two major government programs to help employers combat unlawful employment, E-Verify and the Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers (IMAGE) program.
Since being founded in 1935 in Arkansas, Tyson Foods has created jobs and employed millions of people in states all across America, the majority of whom are American citizens. Today, Tyson Foods employs 120,000 team members in the United States, all of whom are required to be legally authorized to work in this country. We have a history of strong hiring practices, and anybody who is legally able is welcome to apply to open job listings.
OutKick has since reached out for clarification on a number of issues within the statement - including if any of the Iowa workers that were fired were offered new positions or a chance to relocate to other facilities before migrants were hired.
It's true that after 180 days, an asylum seeker is able to potentially be granted a work permit-however, that still doesn't make them legal citizens; it's a game of semantics.
Regardless, based on a report by Bloomberg, the company is essentially squeezing the middle class out - the migrants will be hired at a much lower salary than the other American Tyson employees and thus could drive down wages across the board.
Do migrants need jobs? Absolutely.
But the sheer and absurd optics of firing thousands of legal residents in order to hire tens of thousands of migrants seems to not make too much sense and is only going to overwhelm an already vulnerable system. There's a way to do it in a smart way and this ain't it.