Commentary: Oxfam America pushes top poultry companies to improve working conditions; includes company responses
"Turning up the heat on the poultry industry", 25 Feb 2016
This month, Oxfam presented shareholder resolutions at the annual investor meetings of Tyson Foods and Sanderson Farms calling on the companies to provide more information about the health and safety of poultry workers. Both company proposals received strong support from investors—a clear sign that the people who own these companies are becoming more concerned about how they treat their workers...We targeted the top four poultry companies—Tyson Foods, Pilgrim’s, Perdue, and Sanderson Farms—which control nearly 60 percent of the domestic chicken market...Sanderson provided a lengthy and detailed response in opposition to our proposal...We also ran an op-ed in the Baltimore Sun reporting on a survey of local poultry workers near the headquarters of Perdue in Maryland that reaffirmed the findings of the Oxfam report. Our op-ed drew a response from Perdue, which we posted on our company response website...