When Our Neighbors Are on Our Plates

I spent the past week in Northwest Arkansas with Pastor Dan, Rev. Kyle Riley, Courtney Angel, and nine of the Friends Church Youth. We were there on our annual trip with Be the Neighbor to learn about economic justice. There is much to be covered on this subject, and I’ll leave it to the Youth Group to share that with you during their youth-led worship service in August. For now, I want to focus on a particular aspect of the trip that has held my attention, justice for workers in the poultry industry.  

My reasoning for focusing on poultry workers has to do with being raised in a family with deep roots in agriculture. The rights of workers in the agriculture industry matters to me, as does the treatment of the animals involved, and I am grateful to have a community who is invested in joining in these advocacy efforts alongside me. So, let’s get into it.

While in Arkansas, the Youth Group spent the afternoon with an organization called Venceremos, which translates to “we will win,” or “we shall overcome.” Venceremos, a worker-led organization, is dedicated to advocating for the rights of workers in the poultry industry, particularly our immigrant workers. It is important to note that the majority of people working in the meatpacking industry are immigrants. These workers are often undocumented, meaning that they are frequently subjugated to unfair treatment without any means to safely speak out or advocate for themselves. This is not exclusive to the poultry industry, agriculture within the United States in general relies on migrant workers, and when workers are undocumented, they are frequently exploited. You can easily underpay and violate the rights of undocumented workers in the United States because there are no systems in place for them to advocate for themselves, and with the current actions of ICE, speaking out is not an option. And since it is frowned upon to teach our children the history of their own country, I will state here that exploiting migrant workers (and enslaved people) is a vast part of what developed the United States, and the reason why this country holds the wealth that it does.

Tyson Foods, headquartered in Northwest Arkansas, is responsible for the mass expansion of the poultry industry in the early 1930’s. Since then, one in every five pounds of chicken in the U.S. is produced by Tyson. While in Arkansas, we visited Venceremos, the organization advocating for the rights of poultry workers. They introduced us to the investigative work of Alice Driver, whose work on this subject contributed to her book, Life and Death of the American Worker: The Immigrants Taking on America’s Largest Meatpacking Company. Driver called Venceremos a “plant growing in the desert” for all that it has done in a place owned and operated by the corporations contributing to the very issues they address. From my research, I learned, and was reminded, of the following:

Arkansas and Florida were the first states to pass right-to-work laws in 1944, discouraging unionization within the workforce.

Due to “ag-gag laws,” it is forbidden to enter a meat processing plant with the intention of documenting what happens there without express permission from the owners. Those who do so face fines of several thousand dollars.

During the pandemic, workers who tested positive for Covid were told to continue to work in very close conditions on the processing line, leading to the deaths of workers.

The meatpacking industry cannot maintain profit and production without immigrants and undocumented workers.

Corporations are allowed an unlimited amount of lobbying power across political spectrums in the United States. While billionaires and corporations often donate substantially to humanitarian causes, the question must be asked as to how they became billionaires, and if the circumstances surrounding their financial success led to the detriment of vulnerable populations, who must now rely on the charities to which they contribute.

Items that Tyson Foods are unable to sell in grocery stores are often sold to prisons. As former CEO Don Tyson once stated during a New York Times interview in the 1990’s, prisoners are a “captive audience” for such products.

Friends, there is much to share on this subject, but I offer now what I, and the Friends Church Youth Group, have learned this past week as a reminder of what is happening every day to our neighbors, and that we were made for such a time as this to act as people of God’s liberative justice. We can do better; our neighbors deserve better.