Letters: Readers discuss Tyson Foods’ employee practices, minorities and anti-Trump bias

Tyson workers

In his Nov. 28 guest commentary, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach made some allegations about Tyson Foods’ hiring practices that need to be corrected. (13A, “The culture of corruption in Kansas’ capitol”)

Here are the facts:

Just as with every employer, team members who work for our company are required to present evidence of appropriate work authorization in the U.S. In the case of Tyson Foods, we voluntarily use every available tool provided by the government to verify the documents of the people we hire.

But we don’t stop there. We take other steps, including specialized training for our employment managers and the use of an independent outside company to regularly audit our hiring practices.

Almost 20 years ago, Tyson Foods became one of the first major employers to voluntarily participate in the federal government’s E-Verify program, which is designed to help determine employment eligibility of new hires. In addition, we voluntarily participate in the government’s Social Security Number Verification Service.

In 2011, Tyson Foods became one of the first large food companies to become a full member of the Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers program, which enables employers to partner with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement on employment-verification matters.

When we recruit workers, our goal is always to hire as many people locally as possible. In fact, the availability of local labor is one of the key factors we consider when we decide where to build a new plant. Attracting and retaining workers is also important. That’s why we offer competitive wages and benefits that include health insurance, a 401(k) retirement savings program and paid vacations and holidays.

We’re an equal opportunity employer and are transparent about our workforce. We encourage anyone who wants to learn more about working for Tyson Foods to visit the workforce section of our annual sustainability report.

Hector Gonzalez

Vice President of

Human Resources,

Poultry

Tyson Foods

Springdale, Ark.

A few easy fixes

To make America great again, the following groups of people in the middle and lower classes will need to be eliminated or suppressed: females, children, browns, blacks, yellows, reds, disabled adults and children, poor people, old people, ill people, liberals, non-Christians, addicts, the homeless and those who say “Happy holidays.”

This project can be funded by discontinuing all “entitlements,” including those formerly thought to have been earned by people in the above groups.

Jim Semadeni

Kansas City

Taxes and charities

Both the Senate and House have proposed to raise the standard deduction for couples filing a joint return to $24,000 and eliminate their personal exemptions of $8,100. For most taxpayers, this would eliminate gifts to charities as a tax deduction. Charities could be hit hard by this change.

I suggest keeping the $8,100 exemption and making the standard deduction $16,000. By doing this, more people would be able to use their charitable contributions as a deduction. For some taxpayers, donations are their only deductible item. Organizations that depend on donations need to pay close attention to the proposed tax bill.

Jim Blaufuss

Lenexa

Sarcastic praise

Even I, a Republican, can see why the media and the Democrats correctly deny press bias.

For example, in Sunday’s Star, buried on Page 10A, in a story by reporters of the great Washington Post, nine lines out of 75 were given to the content of President Donald Trump’s talk at the opening of a civil rights museum. (“Protests greet Trump at civil rights museum”)

Why would they need to give any more of his remarks, which were about the need to be fair and give all equal opportunity? Isn’t nine versus 66 a fair balance? Everyone can see that — even we despicable Republicans.

After all, they quoted two congressmen and a mayor in the story who would not attend because of Trump’s “hurtful policies (that) are an insult to the people portrayed in this civil rights museum.” Clearly, to ask any Trump supporters to say a few words favoring his remarks to include in the story would have shown an unfair bias to him, and bias is not what great journalists put in their stories. I know this, because this is what they say, and the media are always correct, aren’t they?

Why shouldn’t the protesters get much more ink? After all, he is only the president.

Walt Vernno

Prairie Village

This story was originally published December 11, 2017 at 8:30 PM with the headline "Letters: Readers discuss Tyson Foods’ employee practices, minorities and anti-Trump bias."