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Perdue settles class action suit; Poultry producer to pay employees $10 million
The Baltimore Sun
August 8, 2002
Perdue Farms Inc., the Salisbury-based poultry producer, has agreed to pay $10 million to settle a 1999 lawsuit that claimed hourly chicken processing employees were cheated out of pension benefits and required to work off the clock.
The settlement of the class action lawsuit, which received preliminary approval yesterday from the U.S. District Court for the District of Delaware, is subject to final approval after notice has been sent to about 60,000 workers eligible to make claims. A final approval hearing is set for October, and workers could receive lost wages early next year.
The settlement follows another multimillion-dollar settlement Perdue reached in May with the U.S. Department of Labor. In that case, Perdue agreed to pay about $10 million in back wages after the government said the company had violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by failing to pay workers for time needed to put on and take off protective clothing needed to perform their jobs.
Plaintiffs argued that not paying workers for the time it took to dress and undress in protective gear and to clean equipment at the end of the day violated federal and state wage laws. In addition, the lawsuit claimed that workers were cheated out of pension benefits because they were not given credit for all the time worked.