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Tyson Responds To Workers Lawsuit

Mike

Well-known member
Tyson responds to workers' lawsuit, denies lack of pay

By Tim Vandenack

The Hutchinson News
Hambelton LaGreca

[email protected]

A lawsuit filed by workers at the Tyson Fresh Meats meatpacking plant in Holcomb generated a blanket denial from the company in its formal response this week.

More than 250 current and former workers at the plant filed suit in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., last May charging that they should be on the clock while putting on and taking off their protective work garb. The number of plaintiffs now totals 410 and growing, and they seek upward of $5 million in pay dating back three years.

Tyson filed its response Thursday, denying any wrongdoing and rejecting charges that it isn't paying employees for the work they do.

"We are already paying for time taken to put on and take off certain items of clothing before and after shifts and breaks at the Holcomb plant and have been since the late 1990s," Tyson spokesman Gary Mickelson said in an e-mail response. The Springdale, Ark.-based company allows four minutes per day of paid time for such duties.

Nonetheless, George Hanson, one of the workers' lawyers, said four minutes "doesn't come anywhere close" to accounting for the actual time workers spend getting into and out of gloves, face nets, wire mesh garb and other safety gear. Then there's the time it takes to walk between dressing areas and work sites.

"These donning, doffing and walking duties all add up to a significant amount of time every day for which plaintiffs are not paid," the plaintiffs charge in their suit.

The document says damages could exceed $5 million, while Hanson said a precise figure would depend on the final number of workers who end up participating in the suit.

This sort of suit isn't new. Hanson notes a suit filed by workers at a plant now owned by Tyson in Washington state for back pay stemming from the unpaid time they said they spent donning and doffing protective gear.

The U.S. Supreme Court sided with the workers in a decision last November, and Hanson said that ruling bodes well for the Holcomb workers.

"There is no debate," he said, calling the Holcomb case a "mirror image" of the Washington one. "The court of last resort, the highest court in the land, has spoken."

Mickelson, though, while acknowledging that Tyson and other firms have faced similar lawsuits dating to the 1990s, a jury's ruling last month in favor of the company noted. Workers at Tyson's chicken processing plant in New Holland, Pa., had made allegations in U.S. federal court similar to those of the Holcomb workers.

Hanson said thousands of former and current workers ultimately could join the Holcomb suit as plaintiffs. His law firm, meanwhile, is investigating pay policies at meatpacking plants elsewhere in Kansas, including Dodge City and Liberal.

Under normal circumstances, Hanson suspects the Holcomb case could go to trial within 18 months. The addition of new plaintiffs, however, could delay that.

07/08/2006; 02:33:41 AM
 
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