About Wes Morris
In a 2017 interview, Tyson Foods CEO Tom Hayes stated that the company had "the right number of workers" needed to staff its plants and expressed satisfaction with its workforce. Hayes noted that Tyson Foods had been "working with the government all along" on employment verification, including using E-Verify and participating in the IMAGE program with ICE, and said the company paid "well above minimum wage" to attract talent.
Regarding U.S. immigration policy, Hayes said the company was focused on helping its diverse workforce understand potential changes and acting as a "sounding board." On the proposed border adjustment tax, Hayes said it "could be very helpful" for Tyson Foods by making its products more competitive internationally, though he added that the outcome would depend on the strength of the dollar and other economic factors.
Source: AI-verified profile updated from Wes Morris's recent appearances.
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Transcript (8 segments)
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Scarlett0:00
As someone who's on the front line of these changes, these potential changes, we know the meat industry employs many refugees. It's helped make your workforce diverse. This is a point of pride for you and others. What are you doing to prepare for a potential change in America's refugee policies?
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Wes Morris0:13
Yeah, as you said Scarlett, it is a point of pride for us. We have a very diverse workforce, and what we're doing is really trying to help our team members, getting them the information they need, making sure we focus on what they are interested in knowing. We have our whole human resources department deployed against making sure they understand what is impactful to them and what's not, and really getting in the role of just being a sounding board for them to help them understand.
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Scarlett0:36
I wonder though, how difficult it is to fully staff your plants. Is it a case of there are enough qualified workers, or will you need to recruit workers from outside the region and pay up?
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Wes Morris0:45
You know, we've been in a really fortunate place. We do have the right number of workers that we need, and we've been working with the government all along to make sure we're employing E-Verify, matching Social Security numbers. We were one of the first major food companies to work with ICE on the IMAGE program, so we feel great about our position. We have some turnover in our plant, so we have to continuously be diligent against that, but we're really happy about how we've been able to staff our plant.
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Scarlett1:10
One of the criticisms of Donald Trump's positions on immigration and the idea that he's going to be finding undocumented immigrants and supporting them, there's this pushback that if these people leave our workforce, the jobs that they are currently occupying, the lower wage jobs, are not going to be ones that will be filled by citizens, by the rest of the workforce that is unemployed. Do you see that as being the case, or is there a supply that could fill that vacancy?
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Wes Morris1:37
You know, I can speak to Tyson Foods. We have a pretty good employment proposition. We pay well above minimum wage. We are attracting the talent that we need. What happens with other industries, not really sure, but as it relates to Tyson Foods, we feel pretty good about our ability to have the right workforce we need in place.
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Scarlett1:55
Let's talk a little bit about the border adjustment tax. Does the proposed tax hurt or help Tyson?
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Wes Morris2:00
You know, based on what we know today, we can say yeah, we feel like it could be very helpful for us. As you know, to the extent that our products are more competitive internationally, we have to also couple that with is the dollar going to be stronger, and what will be the ultimate economic position that our products will have abroad. But we do see that as a potential good thing for us because we do export quite a bit.
