U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts said he encouraged Tyson to keep the plant open and help displaced workers find jobs
By:Juan Salinas II
Nebraska Examiner
OMAHA — U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., wrote to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, asking her federal department to “block” the closure of the Tyson beef plant in Lexington, Nebraska.
Schumer, in the letter, pointed to the Packers and Stockyards Act, saying the upcoming closure in Lexington is a “textbook violation” of the century-old federal law. The New York Democrat said the closure will send “shockwaves through America’s cattle market.”
“[USDA] publicly stated it is ‘closely monitoring’ the planned closure of large processors like Tyson’s Lexington plant, yet has offered little clarity on whether that monitoring includes active investigation, enforcement, or any concrete steps to protect producers and competition … I urge you to act swiftly to preserve competition, help bring prices down for families and farmers, and save jobs,” Schumer’s letter reads.
The Packers and Stockyards Act, passed in 1921, was meant to promote competitiveness and fair practices in the livestock, meat and poultry industries — and to ensure payment protection.
The law prohibits deception and fraud in those markets. Some have questioned whether the feds have the authority to do so. The Packers and Stockyards Act does give the Agriculture Department the authority to force Tyson to sell the plant.
Nebraska Republican U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts, during a campaign event Friday in Omaha, told the Examiner he had talked to Tyson to “encourage them to quickly make a decision about the plant and to keep it open.” He said he also is working to connect people affected by the closure with help finding jobs.
“I think about the disaster that’s going on in Lexington … like a natural disaster,” Ricketts said, “so it’s locally executed, state supported or state managed, federally supported [and] we’re supporting the state of Nebraska.”
Lexington is likely see 3,200 workers lose their jobs. The statewide economic loss, including both direct and ripple effects, has been estimated at $3.28 billion a year, according to a University of Nebraska-Lincoln Bureau of Business Research analysis.
The west-central Nebraska city is home to more than 10,000 people.
State agencies have partnered with Lexington nonprofits and other groups to support the affected workers. Gov. Jim Pillen told the press after his State of the State address that he is “pushing at every meeting” with Tyson to decide the future of the plant “sooner than later.”
Tyson has not scheduled any shifts at the Lexington facility this week, according to Farm Journal.
The letter from Schumer comes after Ricketts’ Senate race opponent this fall, registered nonpartisan Dan Osborn, used a campaign appearance in Lexington to highlight the plant’s loss. He accused the company of breaking the century-old law. Tyson also is reducing its operations in a plant in Amarillo, in the Texas panhandle.
The Ricketts campaign said Schumer is “amplifying Osborn’s political grandstanding.”
“Dan Osborn will be a consistent yes vote for Schumer’s far-left agenda. … It’s why Schumer spent $3.85 million on Osborn’s last campaign,” said Will Coup, a Ricketts campaign spokesperson. “Nebraskans will see through these political games.”
Dan Osborn said the interest from Washington is “too little and too late.”
“The workers and their families in Lexington are the latest to have the rug pulled out from under them by corporate greed. … Where has Pete Ricketts been on all this?” Osborn asked.
Nebraska also lost a Tyson plant in 2006 in Norfolk. U.S. Rep. Mike Flood, a Republican from Norfolk representing the 1st Congressional District, has said Tyson “stripped the plant bare” and the property couldn’t be used as a beef processing facility. Flood said the plant still sits empty today.
Tyson’s Lexington plant is set to close next week.