Perdue has filed its formal response to a “whistleblower” complaint by a disgruntled contract poultry farmer, rejecting his claims of retaliation and requesting that the U.S. Department of Labor-OSHA dismiss his frivolous complaint.
The complaint, filed by a non-governmental advocacy organization calling itself the Government Accountability Project on behalf of Craig Watts, alleges retaliation against Watts in the wake of an activist video released by Compassion in World Farming. In its response, Perdue details why it has good reason to believe the grower deliberately withheld appropriate care from chickens he was raising for Perdue to allow the activist group to film them and cooperated in the production of a skewed and misleading video. Perdue’s response also lays out Watts’ years of complaints and activism about the economics of contract chicken production before he resorted to participating in an apparent scheme to defame Perdue and disparage how its chickens are raised and marketed.