| FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE January 11, 2001 |
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Poultry Industry Ripping Off Workers A U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) survey of 51 poultry processing plants found that every employer surveyed violated federal wage and hour laws. The DOL reported widespread violations including undercounting of hours worked, impermissible deductions from wages, failure to pay required overtime wages, and improperly charging employees for required equipment. The 2000 DOL survey found:
Conditions for the 250,000 poultry workers in this country are worsening, according to this year's findings. A 1997 DOL probe found 60 percent of poultry companies were in violation of basic wage and hour laws. Now that number has increased to 100 percent. Poultry workers perform dangerous, backbreaking and unpleasant work day after day to put food on America's dinner table. Yet the big poultry companies, particularly plants without union protection for workers, break the law and cheat them out of their fair wages. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW) is assisting poultry workers in their effort to end the poultry rip-off. "Poultry workers endure low wages and some of the most dangerous conditions in America. The UFCW is committed to organizing and representing all poultry workers. This is an outlaw industry and only an organized and mobilized workforce can bring the industry into compliance with the law," said Bill Schmitz, UFCW Director of Food Processing, Packing and Manufacturing. In 1999, the UFCW assisted workers in their efforts to file two lawsuits charging Tyson and Perdue with off-the-clock violations. Employees at Tyson Foods filed suit in federal court in June,1999 charging the poultry giant with cheating employees out of wages by forcing workers to report to the plant early and stay late, working off the clock up to an hour a day putting on and taking off their required safety equipment. Tyson also violates the basic wage and hour laws by failing to provide workers with their required break time. Tyson workers are encouraged to call the toll-free number 1-877-FAIR-WAGE to find out more about the lawsuit. Perdue workers also filed a lawsuit challenging the company's pay and retirement ripoff in U.S. District Court in Delaware. Perdue failed to pay employees for all their work hours, set-up, preparation and clean up time---all required parts of the job- --are done "off-the-clock." Cheating workers out of wages for all hours worked not only cuts their regular paychecks, but permanently reduces their retirement benefit under the Perdue Supplemental Retirement Plan. Perdue workers interested in the lawsuit can call 1.877.868.8660 Over the last three decades, chicken consumption in the United States has more than doubled. Poultry industry profits have soared more than 300 percent. Worker productivity, efficiency have grown considerably. In the last decade, real wages for workers have remained flat, workers earning an average of $6.55 an hour in 1990 earned only $6.74 (in 1990 dollars) in 1999. UFCW, the nation's largest poultry worker union, represents 1.4 million workers in the retail food, meat packing, poultry, food processing, footwear, garment and textile, healthcare, and chemical industries. Over 900,000 UFCW members work as clerks and meatcutters in neighborhood supermarkets, a primary outlet for poultry products. The UFCW was instrumental in bringing about an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) ruling on the right of poultry workers to use the bathroom. |
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