Tyson Foods is among a nine-strong group of US poultry processors that have agreed to settle a wage dispute stretching back more than two decades.
The meat giant and the eight other defendants will pay $180.8m to plaintiffs in the latest settlement round, although Tyson Foods and the rest of the group have not admitted liability.
It takes the total paid out in the drawn-out litigation process to just under $398.1m, according to an official document issued by the US district court in Maryland. The legal case dates from 1 January 2000 until 20 July 2021, with the companies involved accused of fixing workers’ compensation and sharing “sensitive” information about employees’ compensation packages.
As well as Tyson Foods, and jointly Keystone Foods, which the meat major acquired in 2018 from Brazil-headquartered Marfrig Global Foods, the latest settlement also involves the Jennie-O Turkey Store unit of Hormel Foods.
Allen Harim Foods, Amick Farms, Butterball, Fieldale Farms Corp., Foster Poultry Farms, Koch Foods and OK Foods make up the rest of the nine making the latest settlement.
The Maryland court said the $398.05m settlement is the “second-largest recovery ever in a labour anti-trust class action” in the US.
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According to the court document, the nine processors “conspired to suppress the compensation paid to workers at poultry processing plants, hatcheries, feed mills and complexes over a nearly twenty-year period”.
And, the document reads, they entered “unlawful agreements” in violation of the so-called Sherman Act “to fix compensation for poultry processing workers”. It added that they also entered agreements “to exchange competitively sensitive compensation information, in violation of the rule of reason”.
In what the Maryland court described as a “complex anti-trust action” brought by the plaintiffs, the defendants agreed to the settlement to avoid incurring additional financial cost.
“Settling defendants contest both the factual basis for plaintiffs’ claims and many of the legal bases for plaintiffs’ claims,” the court document read. It added: “[A]n integral part of the strength of a case on the merits is a consideration of the various risks and costs that accompany continuation of the litigation.”.
Just Food has asked the latest batch of companies for comment on the settlement.
Tyson Foods and Keystone are paying a combined $115.5m, the largest payout among the nine companies to plaintiffs. Koch Foods is paying $18.5m, Foster Farms is settling for $13.3m, Butterball $8.5m, Amick Farms $6.25m, Allen Harim $5m and Jennie-O $3.5m.
Plaintiffs in the case had previously reached a settlement with a group of other US poultry processors, including Pilgrim’s Pride, Sanderson Farms and Perdue Farms, according to the court document.
