Perdue Farms: Overview

Privately held Perdue Farms Inc., the Maryland-based poultry giant, has annual sales of more than $2.7 billion.

Perdue, one of the nation's largest poultry companies, operates 17 poultry plants in 12 states and employs 14,800 plant workers.

April 11, 2003---Perdue Farms is fined $80,000 in Virginia water-pollution case and has agreed to upgrade a processing plant in Virginia to settle charges of water pollution.
On August 7, 2002, it was announced that Perdue Farms, Inc. would pay $10 million to settle a class-action lawsuit by 60,000 poultry workers at the company's 18 plants for failing to compensate workers for time spent putting on and taking off protective gear.
On May 9, 2002, 25,000 poultry workers got millions in back pay when Perdue Farms agreed to settle with the US Department of Labor. The settlement follows the UFCW four-year-long "Full Pay" campaign.
On May 10, 2001, Perdue agreed to pay $2.4 million to settle a federal lawsuit charging federal Fair Labor Standards Act and Maryland wage law violations, brought on behalf of 100 chicken catchers. Perdue will pay $1.7 million in back overtime to the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 27 members who catch birds at Perdue plants in Maryland, Virginia and Delaware.
From independent contractors to union members, chicken catchers at Perdue Farms Inc. on the Delmarva peninsula have traveled a long, hard road. But their struggle to win a voice on the job finally paid off when 69 catchers at plants in Salisbury, Md., and Georgetown, Del., voted on July 7 to join UFCW Local 27--the first such victory ever for Perdue workers.
In 1991, after years of classifying the catchers as regular employees eligible for overtime and other benefits, Perdue recategorized them as independent contractors. After a U.S. District Court judge ruled in February that the company's refusal to pay workers overtime violated federal wage laws, the catchers' fight to win a voice began in earnest. A threat to replace workers with chicken-catching machines only redoubled their efforts to win a voice on the job.

With help from the Delmarva Poultry Justice Alliance, Local 27 members launched a consumer campaign aimed at Eastern Shore residents, distributing leaflets outside grocery stores and asking them to support the catchers' cause. Shoppers responded by flooding Perdue headquarters with phone calls and e-mails.

Finally, bowing to union and consumer pressure, Perdue agreed to the election.