Fri, 07/16/2021
Poultry processing workers have reached a $29 million settlement with their employer, Pilgrim’s Pride Corporation, after claiming it conspired with other poultry companies to keep wages low. The settlement—which must first be approved by a federal judge in Maryland—requires Pilgrim’s to make the large cash payment and cooperate in the workers’ conspiracy case against other poultry companies. Notably, Pilgrim’s has agreed to provide many key documents and compensation data, to assist the workers in obtaining phone records, and to allow the workers to question five of its current employees under oath.
This cooperation will make it easier for the workers to prove their conspiracy claims against the remaining companies in the lawsuit. The workers have sued most of the nation’s leading poultry processing companies (including Tyson Foods and Koch Foods) and two consulting companies. These companies collectively control more than 90 percent of the poultry processing labor market. The workers allege that, by conspiring to depress wages for hundreds of thousands of workers at roughly 200 poultry plants across the country, these companies violated federal antitrust laws. Remarkably, the workers claim that the companies had an explicit agreement to fix wages for poultry processing workers, held clandestine meetings, and unlawfully shared compensation information. As a result of these anticompetitive practices, the workers’ wages were artificially low, causing millions of dollars in damages.
