Labor & Employment Law Daily Wrap Up, LITIGATION NEWS, TRENDS—Poultry plant workers obtain $398M settlement in wage fixing lawsuit, (Jun 6, 2025)
Organizations Mentioned:Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll, PLLC | Perdue Farms Inc., Tyson Foods, Inc. | Perdue Farms, Inc. | Tyson Foods
By Patricia K. Ruiz, J.D.
The workers alleged the employers conspired to fix their compensation at below-market levels.
Poultry plant workers entered into a $398 million settlement with the U.S.’s largest chicken and turkey producers, including Perdue Farms Inc., Tyson Foods, Inc., and dozens of other companies, resolving a putative class action antitrust lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maryland. The workers alleged the employers conspired since 2019 to depress hourly wages paid to vulnerable workers in their chicken processing plants, in violation of federal antitrust laws, according to Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll PLLC, which represented the workers.
Three-pronged anticompetitive strategy. The lawsuit alleged the employers have conspired to fix worker compensation below fair market levels by using a three-pronged strategy: (1) conducting “off the books” in-person meetings where they discussed and ultimately set wages and benefits paid to chicken processing plant workers; (2) exchanging detailed, timely, and competitively sensitive wage data through two survey companies; and (3) engaging in bilateral and regional plant-to-plant exchanges of current and projected compensation data.
Targeting vulnerable workers. The workers sought to represent a class of non-supervisory production and maintenance workers at chicken processing plants in the continental U.S. These workers perform dangerous yet essential jobs for the defendant companies, such as hanging live chickens on a slaughter line, slaughtering the birds, and repairing slaughter equipment, the press release states. Despite the shockingly high rates of injuries and illness in chicken processing plants, workers earn wages that place them near or below the poverty line.
Former senior policy adviser for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), Debbie Berkowitz, described chicken processing as “an industry that targets the most vulnerable group of workers and brings them in. And when one group gets too powerful and stands up for their rights, they figure out who’s even more vulnerable and move them in.” As such, poultry processing plants rely heavily on migrant workers, refugees, asylum-seekers, immigrants employe under EB3 visas, prison laborers, and participants in court-ordered substance abuse program.
Companies: Perdue Farms Inc., Tyson Foods, Inc.
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