Last fall, U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley put his foot on the neck of Tyson Foods after it announced plans to close two plants in southern Missouri.
Now, the state’s senior GOP senator is applying more pressure to the food-producing giant.
On Monday, Hawley sent a letter to Tyson management, lambasting it for — according to a lawsuit filed recently by several chicken producers — misleading Hawley and farmers about their intentions.
The beef began in August, when Tyson announced it would close two plants in October. One plant in Dexter, in the Bootheel, employed about 700 people; the other, near Joplin, employed about 1,500 workers.
In September, Hawley said he secured a promise from the company that it would try to sell the plants to other chicken producers, who then could honor production contracts that Tyson had with local farmers.
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“You personally assured me that you would not prevent a competitor from acquiring these plants,” Hawley said in Monday’s missive to Tyson chief Donnie King. “Now, a class-action lawsuit filed against your company alleges that this was a lie.”
In a statement, Hawley claims that Tyson did sell the two plants, but to operations that produced eggs, not broiler chickens.
“The farmers (with Tyson agreements) built their farms for chicken production in reliance on those contracts,” Hawley wrote, adding that “farmers who built their farms for chicken production ... have now allegedly been left out in the cold.”
In the letter, Hawley also name-checks U.S. Rep. Jason Smith, R-Salem, who chairs the Ways and Means Committee.
Hawley said that the farmers’ lawsuit involves documents, now closed from the public, which could show that Tyson misled Hawley and Smith about its intentions.
“You should immediately make this redacted information public,” Hawley concluded. “The people of Missouri deserve to know the truth.”
View life in St. Louis through the Post-Dispatch photographers' lenses. Edited by Jenna Jones.