Tyson closed the Joslin plant overnight. The chief executive's pay went up 51 percent.
On August 14 Tyson Foods closed its beef plant in Joslin, Illinois. Democracy Now reported that roughly 2,500 workers lost their jobs with no advance notice.
NBC Chicago reported that workers arrived for their shift that day and found the plant already closed, and that production ceased the same day.
Labor Notes reported that the workforce was largely immigrant, drawn from Africa, Latin America and Burma, and that many had between ten and thirty years at the plant. WVIK spoke to Essobou Ouro Gmao, 56, who came from Togo and had worked there for twenty-one years.
Tyson gave a reason for the closure. NBC Chicago reported that the company cited soaring input costs and a historic cattle shortage, with the United States herd at roughly a 75-year low.
That is the company's account of the year. Here is the same year read from the top of the company.
Talk Business & Politics, reading the proxy statement Tyson filed on December 17, reported that chief executive Donnie King's total compensation for fiscal 2025 was $34.469 million, an increase of 51.3 percent on the year before. That figure breaks down as $1.662 million in base pay, a $9.401 million bonus, $19.584 million in stock awards, $2.943 million in option awards and $777,795 in other compensation. The same article reports the company's beef segment posting a loss of more than $1 billion.
Read those two together. The beef business lost more than a billion dollars, and the pay of the person running the company rose by half again.
Arkansas Business, reading the same proxy, reported that King's fiscal 2024 compensation was $22.8 million, that his fiscal 2025 pay was 798 times the median Tyson employee's, and that the median Tyson employee was paid $43,206.
There is one more thing in the reporting. Labor Notes reported that UFCW Local 1546 president Robert O'Toole signed an agreement four days after the closure not to interfere with or challenge it.
Essobou Ouro Gmao gave that plant twenty-one years.
By the numbers
- 2,500 — workers laid off with no advance notice when Tyson closed the Joslin, Illinois beef plant on August 14, 2026[1]
- roughly a 75-year low — in the United States cattle herd, which Tyson cited alongside soaring input costs as the reason for the closures[2]
- 21 years — Essobou Ouro Gmao's tenure at the Joslin plant before the closure[3]
- $34.469 million — Donnie King's total fiscal 2025 compensation, up 51.3 percent on fiscal 2024, per the proxy statement filed December 17, 2025[4]
- more than $1 billion — loss posted by Tyson's beef segment in the same fiscal year[5]
- 798 to 1 — ratio of King's fiscal 2025 pay to the median Tyson employee's[6]
- $43,206 — median Tyson employee pay in fiscal 2025[7]
The reporting
This story is built on reporting by Democracy Now. Read the original →
Sources
- Democracy Now, Tyson Foods layoffs: Illinois and Utah closures
- NBC Chicago, Tyson Foods abruptly closing beef plant in Illinois
- Labor Notes, Treated worse than cattle: 2,500 Tyson workers laid off
- WVIK, Laid-off Tyson workers rally outside plant in Joslin
- Talk Business & Politics, Tyson Foods' boss sees a more than 50% pay raise in fiscal 2025
- Arkansas Business, Tyson Foods CEO Donnie King sees compensation jump to $34M in 2025
Image credits
- Hero: source (WVIK, Quad Cities NPR) — Jonathan Turner
- Worker: source (WVIK, Quad Cities NPR) — Jonathan Turner
- Headquarters: source (Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0) — Brandonrush