Dive Brief:
- Tyson Foods Inc. has a won a reversal of close to $24 million in damages that would have been awarded to Nebraska hourly workers who claimed they did not receive pay for time spent performing pre- and post-shift tasks at their plants.
- The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis "found insufficient evidence of an agreement for Tyson to pay those wages" which would support an $18.77 million award for employees of a Madison, NE pork processing plant, and no evidence of an agreement to back up a $4.96 million award for workers at a Dakota City, NE, beef processing plant, reports Reuters.
- "We continue to believe we’re paying our people appropriately and, like other businesses, have strived to comply with federal wage and hour laws that are not precise in describing what activities should be compensated," Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson told the Associated Press.
Dive Insight:
"The Nebraska workers filed the lawsuits in 2008, saying they should be paid for the roughly 30 minutes it takes to do pre- and post-production chores, such as putting on uniforms and safety gear, sanitizing equipment, sharpening knives and other duties. At that time, Tyson paid workers for their time on the assembly line plus four minutes for all such chores, but that’s since been increased to up to 20 minutes a day," according to the Associated Press.
Tyson is also seeking an appeal for a $5.8 million award in a wage dispute at a Storm Lake, IA pork processing plant. The U.S. Supreme Court is expected to deliver a decision by June 2016.
These court decisions are setting legal precedents for two overarching issues: whether meatpackers are required to pay workers for these pre- and post-shift tasks and "whether workers should have been allowed to use statistics to determine damages for an entire class-action lawsuit based on the average amount of time that a sample of workers spent putting on and taking off their safety gear," the Associated Press reported.