Tyson Foods has fired 10 employees after an undercover video released by an animal rights group showed workers abusing and improperly killing chickens at breeding facilities in Virginia. At one point, a worker in the video warns another standing on a chicken’s head that they could be filmed by animal rights activists.
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CHICAGO Tyson Foods Inc said it has fired 10 workers who were captured abusing breeder chickens in Virginia in a secretly recorded video released by an animal rights group on Thursday.
“I’m disgusted and outraged by what’s shown in this video”, Christine Daugherty, vice president of sustainable food production for Tyson Foods, said in a statement.
In addition to the firings, the company is working with law enforcement officials who will determine if the offenders – all trained in proper animal handling practices – will be criminally charged for their actions.
Daugherty added: “Animals in our care deserve to be treated humanely”. The activists typically apply for work at the facilities and are able to surreptitiously record the footage.
It also said it had eliminated the “beak modification” shown in the video, which involved plastic rods being jammed through chickens’ beaks, apparently is to keep male chickens from taking food from females.
In the past, the company has responded to the abuse seen in such videos as inexcusable, while stressing that the abusers were not reflective of Tyson’s institutional commitment to animal welfare. Tyson said that previously all but two plants – presumably the plants shown in the video – had discontinued this practice and now the last two have done so as well. The company, which made more than $10 billion in poultry sales a year ago, says it is now evaluating further steps it can take to ensure animal well-being procedures are being followed throughout its operations. Animal Control officials in Mecklenburg and Buckingham counties confirmed to the Washington Post that they were investigating but an official in Lunenburg County did not return a request for comment. Her statement seems like a possible attempt to take away from the fact that these employees are not just a few “bad apples” but are part of a wider systemic problem of mistreating animals that we consume. The day before the video was released to the greater public, however, Tyson made a statement that they would retrain its staff who have been caught abusing live birds. No charges have been filed, but a Tyson spokesperson also says the company has been in touch with localauthorities.
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The company also said it will conduct a video conference this week in which Tyson’s senior management will discuss handling of live birds with managers at the company’s facilities.
