Tyson Foods, with thousands of Iowa employees, will require COVID-19 vaccinations

Steve Sines just wanted an easy week off a year ago in May.

He planned to bum around his home in Fremont and hit the golf course a couple of times. But on the first day of his vacation, he checked his email and learned that his recent COVID-19 test had come back positive.

A couple of days later, after a friend called three times to check on him, his brothers broke into his Fremont home and found him unconscious.

Paramedics flew him to the University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics, where a nurse told Sines' brothers and two sons that Sines would be dead the next morning. But he hung on and returned home last August.

For months, he couldn't walk more than three steps. He lost 43 pounds. He still can't bend over without getting wheezy.

"It's been hell," he said. "It's taken a lot out of me. I don't think I'll ever get back to 100%."

Still, Sines, head of a union local representing meatpacking workers at JBS, felt uneasy Tuesday when he heard that Tyson Foods will require all employees to get vaccinated by Nov. 1. He's wary about problems stemming from union members who don't want to get the shots.

Other large national employers including Disney, Google and Walmart have announced that many of their employees must get the vaccine. But thus far, Tyson is the only major Iowa manufacturer to announce a blanket mandate. The company employs thousands of workers at its plants, which also are in Columbus Junction, Council Bluffs and Storm Lake.

Tyson announced its decision after COVID-19 hospitalizations in Iowa nearly doubled to 157 on July 28 from the beginning of that month, the most recent data available.

The increase is attributed to the spread in Iowa of the highly contagious delta variant of the coronavirus. In addition, Iowa has a relatively high proportion of unvaccinated residents.

"Getting vaccinated is the single most effective thing we can do to protect ourselves, our families and our communities," Tyson CEO Donnie King said in an open letter to employees announcing the new vaccine requirement. It will take effect for Tyson executives Sept. 24, office employees Oct. 1 and for other Tyson workers a month later.

Sines is president of the United Food & Commercial Workers Local 230, representing workers at an Ottumwa pork packing plant operated by JBS, which also is considering a vaccine mandate. He has gotten the vaccine himself, and he estimates that about 80% of the plant's employees have done so as well.

But he and other union officials said some employees do not trust the vaccine, and the union leaders worry that members will quit because of the requirement. Meatpackers and manufacturers already have complained that they can't find enough employees.

"That ain't good," Sines said. "It's going to make a lot of people mad. … They don't believe in it. They don't feel like they know enough information about it. I don't know what it's going to be like. I don't know if we're in for bad times."

The union also represents workers at Tyson plants in Perry and Waterloo, and UFCW International President Marc Perrone said in a statement that companies should not require shots when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration has not "fully approved" the vaccine. The FDA granted emergency use authorization for the shots beginning last year, but has yet to formally approve the vaccine.

Perrone added that companies should give workers paid time off so they "can rest as needed while their body adjusts to the vaccine."

JBS 'having conversations' about a mandate; Pella Windows leaders oppose the move 

JBS, with plants in Council Bluffs, Marshalltown and Ottumwa, is "having conversations with our union partners about the possibility of a vaccine mandate," spokesperson Nikki Richardson said in an email. A spokesperson for Smithfield Foods, which has a plant in Denison, did not return a message seeking comment Tuesday.

Spokespeople for other major Iowa manufacturers, including Collins Aerospace, John Deere, Pella Windows & Doors, Vermeer and Winnebago, said they are not requiring vaccines. Deere, however, did begin requiring everyone at its factories to wear masks again beginning Monday. Collins Aerospace spokesperson Pam Tvrdy-Cleary said in an email Tuesday that employees in "substantial" or "high-transmission" areas must wear masks even if they are vaccinated.

Pella spokesperson Nicolle Picray said the company allows both vaccinated and unvaccinated employees to work without masks. She said managers watch workers to make sure they don't come within 6 feet of one another. She added that the company's leaders philosophically oppose requiring employees to receive shots.

"To lay down a general rule that says you have to be vaccinated as a condition of employment doesn’t align with the idea that people make their own health decisions," she said. 

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has advised even vaccinated people to resume wearing masks indoors if they are in an area with a "substantial" risk of COVID spread, based on the number of recent cases originating in an area. In Iowa, 75 of 99 counties were in that category as of Monday — including Polk and Dallas counites.

Spokespeople for the CDC say masks are important because in some cases vaccinated people are transmitting the virus even if they aren't feeling the effects. During a news conference Monday, Polk County Public Health Director Helen Eddy urged residents to get the vaccine, saying, "If you remain unvaccinated, you will get COVID."

But Gov. Kim Reynolds, who signed a law this year preventing local governments from issuing mask mandates, criticized the CDC's new mask recommendation last week as "not grounded in reality or common sense."

Will requiring vaccines make labor shortages worse?

The meatpacking companies have hosted vaccine clinics at their plants this year and provided some incentives. JBS says it has vaccinated 70% of employees while providing $100 bonuses and four hours of paid time off to those who get the shot.

Tyson said in its statement Tuesday that "almost half" of U.S. employees are vaccinated. The company said it will increase its incentive from four hours of paid time off to $200 bonuses. The change is subject to negotiation with the unions, the company said.

Tyson added that it will not require vaccines for workers who forgo them for medical or religious reasons.

UFCW Local 293 President Eric Reeder, who represents meatpacking workers at JBS and Smithfield plants in Omaha, Nebraska, said plants already are desperate for workers, canceling production of lower-margin products to make sure they had enough employees processing bacon, pork chops and other higher profit cuts of meat. He said he is unsure how a mandate would impact employment levels.

Reeder said JBS has raised starting wages at its Grand Island, Nebraska, plant to $21.50 an hour from $18 an hour. But, he said the raises didn't solve the industry's overall problem because workers left other plants for the higher wages, leaving gaps to fill elsewhere in the food supply chain.

"Your short-term people will say, 'I don't want to work there,'" Reeder said. "But you'd have to have a pretty strong view against vaccines to give up a job where you've been working for 20 years."

UFCW Local 431 President Bob Waters, who represents about 3,000 workers at Tyson's  Waterloo plant, said he received the shot at the plant earlier this year. But he understands why others are hesitant.

"It's experimental, No. 1," he said. "It came out. Nobody had any data on it. … To try to make it mandatory and force it down everybody's throats, they're probably going to lose a lot of good employees."

Tyler Jett covers jobs and the economy for the Des Moines Register. Reach him at tjett@registermedia.com, 515-284-8215, or on Twitter at @LetsJett.