Ahoro Asselissime worked at the Tyson beef plant in Joslin, Illinois, for 11 years. His first paycheck after the plant closed was $500. His rent is $925.
When Asselissime and roughly 2,500 co-workers arrived for their shifts on August 14, they found the plant permanently shut — no advance notice, no explanation. Supervisors stood at the cafeteria doors while workers received their closure paperwork, Labor Notes reported.
“People were crying, shaking,” said Ouano Tante, a Togolese immigrant who had worked the processing line for five years. “When we were leaving the parking lot, there were so many car accidents. People were so upset.”
The plant, which opened in 1983 and had become the Quad Cities’ ninth-largest employer, drew its workforce largely from immigrant communities across Africa, Latin America, and Burma. Most workers lived in the cluster of towns straddling the Illinois-Iowa border, about 160 miles west of Chicago. The village of Joslin itself has just 56 residents.
“People started fighting, people were yelling, people were crying,” one unnamed employee told KWQC, the local Quad Cities news station. “I know people that have been here for 30-plus years. I know people that have been here as little as three days.”
Rita Newton, an 11-year employee, told KWQC she was already calculating what she could afford without health insurance. “I take medication, it costs 300 dollars a month. Insurance [doesn’t] cover. So, you know, now I have to weigh in on that.”
Tyson attributed the closure to a nationwide cattle shortage, announcing it would shut the Joslin facility and a second plant in Utah while seeking to sell a third in Washington state. The company said it was “making strategic changes to its beef operations” after USDA cattle inventory data showed supply constraints “likely to persist.” Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker attributed the market pressure in part to Trump administration tariffs and the ongoing war with Iran.
But Tyson as a whole is not struggling. The company’s overall operating income rose 8 percent in its most recent fiscal quarter, to $547 million, driven by growth in chicken and prepared foods. CEO Donnie King collected nearly $35 million in total compensation last year — 781 times what the median Tyson worker earned.
Under its closure terms, Tyson is paying laid-off workers for 36 hours a week through October — far less than the overtime many had relied on. Four days after the shutdown, UFCW Local 1546 signed an agreement adding one to four additional weeks of severance depending on years of service. Workers have demanded six months.
“I got $500 this week,” Asselissime said. “My rent is $925. I have to put gas in my car, buy food for my kids. Everything is so expensive now.”
The union acknowledged in a statement that it was “extremely disappointed in not receiving advance notice,” adding: “If given the opportunity, we could have sat down and found an economic solution to keep this plant operating, but sadly our voice was silenced.”
Hundreds of workers rallied outside the plant gates the day after the closure. On September 3, workers and community supporters caravanned to the state capitol in Springfield, demanding Pritzker invoke eminent domain to bring the plant under state ownership. Pritzker told KWQC he had spoken directly with Tyson about whether the facility could be repurposed or sold to another buyer. “It’s a tragedy that was caused by the very high cost of beef across the country,” he said.
The closures reflect a structural reality: Tyson, Cargill, JBS, and National Beef together control more than 80 percent of the U.S. beef market, a level of consolidation that multiple federal courts have found enabled price-fixing — squeezing the ranchers who supply the cattle, the workers who process it, and ultimately the consumers who buy it.