This fall, a lawsuit was filed against the top 18 chicken processors (and subsidiaries, affiliates and two consulting firms) alleging they conspired to depress wages for the last 10 years. The lawsuit aims to grant class-action status for hundreds of thousands of employees. Regardless of how the litigation is ultimately resolved, it raises negative attention once again — fairly or not — on how processing plants compensate and value their employees, but this time during a tight labor market.
“For the last 10 years, the industry has been in transition, based on who is working there and how to meet their needs,” says Jessica Leibler, assistant professor of environmental health at Boston University. “This may have come to a head recently, but the transitional period is not new.”