Lexington, Neb. (AP) – On a chilly day after Mass at St. Ann’s Catholic Church in rural Nebraska, worshipers crawled into the basement and sat in folding chairs, their faces masking the fear that gripped their town.
In Lexington, Nebraska, a tent hung like a holiday season.
“Suddenly they tell us there is no more work. Your world is closed to you,” said Alejandra Gutierrez.
He and others work at Tyson Foods’ beef plant and are among 3,200 people who will lose their jobs when Lexington’s largest employer closes the plant next month after more than two decades of operation.
Hundreds of families may be forced to pack up and leave the town of 11,000, east to Omaha or Iowa, or south to meatpacking towns in Kansas or beyond, due to layoffs of Lexington’s restaurants, barbershops, grocery stores, convenience stores and taco spinoffs.
“A loss of 3,000 jobs in a town of 10,000 to 12,000 people is the biggest shutdown event we’ve seen in decades,” said Michael Hicks, director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Ball State University in Indiana. It would be “close to the poster child for hard times”.
All told, job losses are expected to reach 7,000, in Lexington and surrounding counties, according to estimates shared with The Associated Press by the University of Nebraska, Lincoln. Tyson employees alone will lose $241 million in wages and benefits annually.
Tyson says it is closing the plant to “right-size” its beef business after a historically low cattle herd in the U.S. and a projected $600 million loss in beef production for the company next fiscal year.
The plant’s closing threatens to open up a Great Plains city where the American Dream was still attainable, where immigrants who didn’t speak English and didn’t graduate high school bought homes, raised children in safe communities and sent them to college.
Now, those symbols of economic progress — mortgage and car payments, property taxes and tuition costs — are bills that thousands of Tyson workers don’t have to pay.
At St. Ann’s Church, Gutierrez sat among her daughters and was told the plant was closed just before Thanksgiving when she visited a college campus with her high school senior, Kimberly.
“At that moment, my daughter said she didn’t want to read anymore,” Gutierrez said. “Because where are we going to get the money to pay for college?”
Tears rolled down Kimberly’s cheeks as she looked at her mother and then at her hands.
‘Tyson was our homeland’
If you were to throw a dart at a map of the United States, Lexington—called “Lex” by the locals—would be just about the bullseye.
It’s easy to miss driving down Interstate 80, half-hidden by barren hackberry trees, cornfields and pastures of Black Angus cattle, but a driver can spy the massive industrial buildings of a steam pumping plant.
The plant opened in 1990 and was bought by Tyson 11 years later, attracting thousands of workers and nearly doubling the city’s population within a decade.
Many came from Los Angeles, then battered by the recession, including Lizeth Yanes, who at first hated what she called “a little ghost town.”
But soon Lexington flourished, with suburbs sprouting up among bur oak and American elm trees. Downtown, a strip of cobblestone streets and brick buildings, has a Somali grocer that skips a Hispanic bakery; Locals attend more than a dozen churches and several city recreation centers.
To this day, the plant creates the city’s rhythm as workers fill the daily A, B and C shifts and restaurants, school pickup lines and one-screen movie theaters showing “The Polar Express.”
“It took me a long time to enjoy this little place,” Yanes said. “Now I enjoy it, now I must leave.”
The atmosphere inside the Tyson plant, where workers process 5,000 head of cattle a day, work on the slaughter floor, clean teams or cut meat, “feels like a funeral,” she said.
“Tyson was our homeland,” said Arab Adan, a plant worker. The Kenyan immigrant sits in his car with his two energetic sons, who ask him a question he doesn’t have an answer to: “Which state are we going to, Dad?”
The only thing set in Adan is that his children finish the school year in Lexington, where school officials say about half of the students have parents who work for Tyson.
The school district, where at least 20 languages and dialects are spoken, has higher high school graduation and college attendance rates than state and national averages, and has one of the largest marching bands in Nebraska. Residents are proud of the diversity and tight-knit community, where young people return to raise families.
During Mass at St. Ann’s, parishioners gave cash in their pockets to families in financial need, even though they knew they would be out of work next month. Later, Francisco Antonio ran through his future employment options with a sad smile.
After the plant closed Jan. 20, the 52-year-old father of four said he would stay in Lexington for a few months and look for work, even though “there’s no future.” He took off his glasses, paused, apologized and tried to explain his feelings.
“It’s mostly home, not work,” he said, shifting his glasses with a shy smile.
“We need another opportunity, a job, here at Lakes,” he said. “Otherwise Lex will disappear.”
‘Tyson owes this community’
There could be a domino effect: If 1,000 families leave the city, said economist Hicks — who wouldn’t be surprised if that doubles — seats in schools will be left vacant, which could lead to layoffs; Restaurants, shops and other businesses will have very few customers.
Most of the customers at Los Jalapenos, a Mexican restaurant across the street from the plant, are Tyson workers. They fill the booths after work and the owner Armando Martinez’s ratty grin and “Hola, amigo!” The voice welcomes.
Martinez’s grandson once told his grandfather that he wanted to work at Tyson’s when he grew up. The child’s fifth-grade sister recently gathered with classmates to talk to her parents about the changes she’s making. Some went to California, some to Kansas. Everyone was in tears.
If he can’t keep up with the bills, the restaurant will close, but “there’s nowhere we can go,” said Martinez, who is undergoing dialysis for diabetes, has had his leg amputated and prays for a miracle: that Tyson will change his mind.
He knows it’s impossible. Asked for comment about plans for the site by The Associated Press, Tyson said in a statement that “it is currently assessing whether to reuse the facility within our own manufacturing network.” It did not provide details, or say whether it plans to provide support to the community by closing the plant.
Many, including City Manager Joe Peplitus, say Tyson is putting the plant up for sale and hopes the new company will bring jobs. That is not a quick fix, it takes time, negotiation, renewal and no guarantee of comparable works.
“Tyson owes this community a debt. I think they have a responsibility to help mitigate some of the impact here,” he said, adding that Tyson doesn’t pay city taxes because of an agreement reached decades ago.
‘It’s not easy to come back and start over at our age’
Near the plant, at the Dawson County Fairgrounds, Tyson workers recently filled a long hall as state agencies — responding with the urgency of a natural disaster — offered information on retraining, writing resumes, filing for unemployment and avoiding scammers when selling homes.
The faces of those present were gloomy as if they had heard the doctor’s prediction. “Your financial health is changing,” they were told. “Don’t ignore the bank, they won’t go away.”
Many older workers do not speak English, have not graduated high school and are not computer literate. The last application filled out was decades ago.
“We only know how to work in meat for Tyson, we have no other experience,” said Aidan, an immigrant from Kenya.
Back in St. Ann’s, workers echoed that concern.
“They only want young people now,” said Juventino Castro, who has worked at Tyson for a quarter century. “I don’t know what will happen in the time I have left.”
Lupe Ceza said she saved a little money, but it wouldn’t last long. Luz Alvidrez has a cleaning gig that will sustain her for a while. Others may return to Mexico for a while. No one has a clear plan.
“It’s not going to be easy,” said Fernando Sanchez, a 35-year-old Tysons worker who lived with his wife. “We started from scratch here and it’s time to start from scratch again.”
Tears rolled down his wife’s cheeks and she squeezed his hand.
