Gary Mickelson Support Quotations

We're hopeful there will be sufficient law enforcement support to allow this to happen. A bus carrying some management workers was prevented from entering the plant earlier this morning. In fact, picketers blocked the entrance and broke out some of the windows on the bus.

We support our Team Members' right to express themselves on this important matter. We are telling them, if they take part in a rally Monday, and their plant is scheduled to operate, we hope they will not take any unauthorized time off but will instead get pre-approval from their supervisor to participate during non-work hours.

We support comprehensive immigration reform including a solution that provides better control over our borders and more effective tools to help companies verify the documents of the people they hire. We also support a guest worker program and a process for undocumented workers already in the U.S. to be able to earn permanent legal status.

While we understand the sentiment behind the May 1 events and support comprehensive immigration reform, we are not encouraging workers to participate in the rallies. We are asking workers not to take any unauthorized time off and instead seek pre-approval from their supervisor or participate during non-work hours. We don't want our (employees) to jeopardize their good employment records and incomes by taking unauthorized time away from work.

We believe there's evidence that a few unionized inspectors are expressing support for the UFCW local 401 by staying away from the plant to keep it from operating.

We at Tyson support comprehensive immigration reform and support our Team Members' right to express themselves on this important matter.