Three generations of Tyson Workers contemplate the plant’s imminent closure
By Amanda Davis – The Emporia Gazette (TNS)
Dec. 28—In the kitchen of the home of Touch Nou and Chhoukrath Chay, two photographs are proudly displayed on a cabinet. The bottom photograph shows Nou and Chay working at Tyson in 1986 as freshly hired employees. The top photo shows Nou and Chay over thirty years later, wearing masks to avoid covid, and holding up certificates of recognition for their decades of service.
Nou and Chay have worked at the Emporia Tyson Plant in Processing and Managing for 38 years. The couple immigrated from Cambodia in 1984 and began employment at the Tyson manufacturing plant, owned at that time by Iowa Beef Processors, in 1986. All four of Nou and Chay’s children and one of their granddaughters have worked at Tyson, marking a three generation legacy that ends on February 14, 2025, just ten days short of Nou”s 39 year work anniversary.
According to Nou, there is a strong sense of sadness and “feeling lost” in the current Tyson work environment. To Nou, Tyson felt like a second home, and his coworkers felt like family. Although rumors had spread about a closure after hours had been cut and departments closed, Nou received the news of the closure as a shock. He described it as a bad dream come true.
“I feel bad, I feel lost right now because look at my home sweet home over there,” Nou said. “I know everybody over there, you know? We pick on each other. I pick on them. They pick on me. It’s fun.”
Nou was on vacation when the closure was originally announced on Dec. 2. He and Chay had been given $2 raises on that day, the first raise they had ever experienced in their over 30 year careers with Tyson.
Kaila Chea, Nou and Chay”s granddaughter, had worked as a Machine Operator in the Arby’s Department and had been on paid leave to focus on her Doctorate program since October. Tyson later eliminated her department and began consolidating other departments. Kaila was shocked when the Plant announced it was closing permanently.
“I was heartbroken,” Kaila said. “ I’ve been working there for four-ish years.I worked nights first and then I worked mornings, and people have known each other for years. They’ve watched each other age. Yeay [Grandmother in Khmer] has learned some Spanish phrases from working there, they hang out in the locker rooms together.”
Nou said that although younger people could move on to find other jobs or seek education to change employment, many older adults working at the plant would have a more difficult time finding another job. Tyson has offered no severance package to any employees and only a $1700 bonus to employees willing to stay until the closure date. According to Nou, many employees, mostly young people, have already left.
“They’re young, they’re still okay, but the people that have the real job, kids, grandkids like I have, and are a mom and a dad, they look very sad,” Nou said. “I’ve worked there almost 39, 40 years, so everybody is like a brother and sister.”
In 2008, Tyson laid off over 1500 employees when it dismantled its slaughter floor. Nou said that while hundreds of employees were laid off, many were still given an option to work in different departments. Maly Chea, Nou and Chay’s daughter, who previously worked as a lead person in Raw Receiving for two years, said that the 2008 layoffs significantly shrunk Emporia’s Asian community.
“A lot of people did move,” Maly said. “There was a bigger Asian community here, and once they got paid off, they all went to Wichita.”
One of the reasons that the Tyson community has become so tight-knit, according to Kaila, was because the Tyson employee population is mostly made of immigrants. Kaila stated that many people bonded over coming to America and developed their own form of sign language for communicating with each other in loud environments.
”As Asian people in Emporia, Kansas, the closest next community we have to relate to is the next migrant community, which happens to be the Hispanic population in town,” Kaila said.
Chay is in the process of retiring and Nou is currently undecided on whether to find new employment or retire as well. He plans to stay at the plant until its closure in February. Nou and Chay stayed at Tyson for almost four decades because it offered a chance for stability and sprouting roots in a community, something that might not have been available at another job.
“ I don’t speak very good English, and read and write that good,” Nou said. “That’s the only option that I can take. I just go on, and I kind of like it. I learned more English.”
At an informational meeting held last Wednesday and Thursday by the Kansas Department of Labor and the Emporia Rapid Response team, the family learned that former Tyson employees would only be offered four months of unemployment assistance, the required amount offered by the state of Kansas. Kaila described the atmosphere as similar to a funeral.
”It was really quiet but almost worse than a funeral because at a funeral, death is certain, the person’s dead, you have some kind of closure, and there was just so much uncertainty there,” Kaila said. “People left early. I don’t know if it was out of frustration or they didn’t have any questions.”
According to Kaila, the reaction to the closure of Tyson is mixed from a generational perspective. Younger employees are more outraged at how the closure was handled, whereas older generations are more sad.
”They don’t complain, it’s all very easy work for them,” Kaila said. “On the other hand, all the younger people are more radicalized and anti-capitalist, but Yeay and Ta [Grandfather in Khmer] they’re always talking about how grateful they are for Tyson, first and foremost.”
According to Kaila, Tyson provided a third space not just for Nou and Chay, but for many families part of the Tyson community.
“ Tyson is such a big part of Emporia, whether we’d like to admit it or not,” Kaila said. “It provided a third space. Yeay and Ta, they only go to work and home, and sometimes they go to a shop. She was going to retire in November, but then she’s like, “What am I going to do? I’m just going to stay at home all day.”
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