Remember when it was all the rage to hate on Target because it was a French-owned company...which turned out to be patently false. To this day, in my household, we still jokingly refer to it by the French pronunciation of "Tar-gjay". Well, it seems that another company, Tyson's Foods, has landed in the cross-hairs of junk chain email forwarders...since 2008! I evidently missed the first round, because I've only just become aware of it through my first email on the topic. So, here's the real deal and my thoughts.
This one has been around the block a few times:
http://www.snopes.com/politics/religion/tyson.asp
http://urbanlegends.about.com/od/business/a/tyson_foods.htm
As a matter of practice anyway, more and more companies are reducing the number of fixed holidays and increasing "floating" holidays. I currently only have 6 fixed and 3 floaters. Generally speaking, it is in a company's best interest to observe holidays when their employees wouldn't otherwise be productive anyway, and it isn't uncommon to have regional, state, and even religious holidays observed outside of "normal" federal holidays to mitigate the problem, although floating holidays are becoming the preferred method of handling the issue. Further, any company is free to observe whatever work and holiday schedule it deems appropriate based on whatever criteria it so chooses, e.g. Chik-Fil-A is not open past 10 p.m. or on Sundays, unlike all other fast food chains. Inversely, there are plenty of companies that operate stores/shifts/operations during federal holidays and nobody complains about that practice when they either offset with other days off or holiday pay.
Something else to consider is who/what is being hurt when targeting companies. Tyson's Foods Inc. is actually one of the leading Christian owned, faith-in-the-workplace, and charitable donators in the country and a model for Christian valued companies:
http://www.tysonfoods.com/Media-Room/News-Releases/2010/06/Tyson-Chaplaincy-Program-Featured-by-The-Wall-Street-Journal.aspx
http://www.minyanville.com/special-features/articles/john-tyson-christian-church-chaplain-methodist/5/19/2010/id/28276
I think it is fair to say that the majority of people who would be incensed by the chain emails, take action (not buying Tyson's), and forward on, fall into the Christian category, and are probably even strong supporters of Christian valued companies, faith-based organisations, etc. So, it is actually counter-intuitive and counter-productive for them to attack a company which espouses their very same values. Just goes to show that you really need to check your info. I NEVER trust anything I've been blindly forwarded. 99% of the time it has turned out to be false, or at the very least a misrepresentation of the facts/events.
On a side note, I find it very uplifting that Tyson's would show such religious tolerance and understanding to work with the Unions on a compromise for Muslim employees. That makes me want to support them more, not less.
