Tyson Foods said it will provide 20 hours of paid sick time a year to fully vaccinated employees to enhance benefits for workers willing to receive coronavirus vaccinations.
The new benefit, announced on Friday, came after discussions with the United Food & Commercial Workers, which represents several thousand Tyson workers, over the company’s requirement that all of its U.S. workers be vaccinated “as a condition of employment” by Nov. 1. The paid sick leave policy takes effect on Jan. 1, and also applies to all nonunion employees.
Tyson also said that fully vaccinated employees can take up to two weeks of paid administrative leave if they test positive for Covid-19 over the next six months. The company said it would compensate workers for time spent in “educational sessions about the benefits and risks of the Covid vaccines.”
The union had initially expressed reservations when Tyson announced the vaccine mandate last month, but applauded the paid sick leave benefit on Friday, saying it was the first national agreement that provides such a benefit to meatpacking workers. Union officials have said that providing paid sick time is important so workers can still be paid if they miss work or experience some of the vaccines’ common side effects.
“Vaccine mandates, like all Covid workplace safety policies, must be negotiated with workers to build the trust and strong consensus needed for these safeguards to be effective,” the U.F.C.W. president, Marc Perrone, said in a statement.
On Friday, Tyson said that about 90,000, or roughly 75 percent, of its U.S. work force has received at least one dose of the vaccine. More than 30,000 workers have been vaccinated since the company announced its mandate in early August.
Tyson said it now has the support of the U.F.C.W. and the Retail Wholesale and Department Store Union for its vaccine policies. Together, those unions represents more than 80 percent of the company’s 31,000 unionized employees.
“Getting vaccinated remains the single most effective thing we can do to fight this pandemic and continue to help feed this country and our world,” Johanna Söderström, Tyson’s chief human resources officer, said in a statement.
Stuart Appelbaum, president of the retail wholesale union, said the paid sick time agreement with Tyson,” is a clear blueprint many other industries can and should follow.”
"time" - Google News
September 03, 2021 at 10:54PM
https://ift.tt/3n1O4Qu
Tyson Foods Offers Vaccinated Workers More Paid Time Off - The New York Times
"time" - Google News
https://ift.tt/3f5iuuC
No comments:
Post a Comment