A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Amanda Aronczyk, from our Planet Money podcast, heard about a hiring controversy last year at one of the country's biggest meat processors. So she went to see if Tyson Foods was taking away jobs from U.S. citizens and giving them to migrant workers.
AMANDA ARONCZYK, BYLINE: When Camacaro first migrated to the U.S., he spent a few months living in the shelter system in New York City. Things were pretty bleak. That is until he heard about a job with Tyson Foods. My co-reporter Carlos Garcia asked him how he first heard about it.
CARLOS GARCIA: (Speaking Spanish).
CAMACARO: (Speaking Spanish).
ARONCZYK: His friend told him to go to this office building in Manhattan, and he went, filled in an application, took a drug test, showed his work permit, and that day, he got an offer - $16.50 an hour to cut up chickens. So he moved to a small town in Tennessee and headed to the plant for his first day at work.
GARCIA: (Speaking Spanish).
CAMACARO: (Speaking Spanish).
ARONCZYK: His first day was cold. He didn't know to bundle up - thought he might die of the cold. Thankfully, Camacaro did not die. Now, Camacaro is actually a family name. He asked that we not use his first name because he didn't want to risk losing his job. And he considers this job a blessing.
CAMACARO: (Speaking Spanish).
ARONCZYK: He says think of all the migrants who arrived in the U.S. He is one of the privileged ones to have gotten a job. Now, right as Camacaro was getting his job, another Tyson Foods plant - this one in Perry, Iowa - was closing down. This is where the controversy comes in because Tyson was laying off their workers in Iowa. Jody Wells worked there, and she remembers everyone being called down to the cafeteria.
JODY WELLS: Well, when we first got there, we were all laughing and joking, and, you know, we're like family there, so...
ARONCZYK: Then the managers passed around a stack of papers announcing the closing.
WELLS: And then when they handed that out, you could see people tear up and get mad, and they're asking, what do we do now?
ARONCZYK: This plant was Perry's biggest employer, and Jody was hearing from people in town about Tyson hiring elsewhere.
WELLS: I know people are upset that they think that immigrants are taking people's jobs.
ARONCZYK: It's true that while people were being laid off in Iowa, Tyson was hiring migrants in New York, and the accusation was that the laid-off workers were not being given the same opportunities as the migrants. So we asked.
Did Tyson offer to pay people to move elsewhere - relocate to work at a different plant?
WELLS: Yes, to Waterloo and Tennessee.
ARONCZYK: Jody, who worked for the union, said the offer was limited to only some workers. Tyson declined to give us an interview, but a rep emailed to say that anyone who worked at the plant could get a job at a different location. Either way, some of the Iowa workers could have moved to work in Tennessee. Tyson was not giving their jobs to migrants.
Tyson Foods is actually one of the largest meat packing companies in the country, and over the last decade, Tyson opened or expanded 17 facilities, but they also closed 18 large facilities. It's an industry with a high turnover rate. Churning through workers, hiring in one place, laying off somewhere else is baked into how Tyson does business. That checked out when we followed up with Camacaro.
CAMACARO: (Speaking Spanish).
GARCIA: (Speaking Spanish).
CAMACARO: (Speaking Spanish).
ARONCZYK: Camacaro says he was laid off by Tyson in January. He didn't know why, and Tyson had no comment.
Amanda Aronczyk, NPR News.
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