ROCHELLE — Employees of the Tyson Foods facility in Rochelle will soon be required to be vaccinated against COVID-19, a corporate press release said Tuesday.

All Tyson leadership (officers and above) must be vaccinated by Sept. 24, all employees in office by Oct. 1 and all other employees by Nov. 1. All new hires must be fully vaccinated prior to their start date. Employees that are members of a union will be subject to the results of union bargaining on the issue.

Frontline employees, once fully-vaccinated and verified in Tyson’s verification program, will receive $200 as a thank you for participating, subject to ongoing discussions with unions.

“We did not take this decision lightly,” Tyson Foods President & CEO Donnie King said. “We have spent months encouraging our team members to get vaccinated – today, under half of our team members are. We take this step today because nothing is more important than our team members’ health and safety, and we thank them for the work they do, every day, to help us feed this country, and our world.”