Red Meat Processing Plant Wage-Fixing Litigation

Berger Montague is on the executive committee of this wage-fixing case (Brown v. JBS USA Food Company, et al.) against numerous red meat processing plants. Pending final approval, there have been $200 million in settlements to date. 

The complaint was filed on November 14, 2022 on behalf of red meat processing plant workers Ron Brown, Minka Garmon, Jessie Croft, and all those similarly situated. The complaint alleges that the defendants violated Section 1 of the Sherman Antitrust Act, 15 U.S.C. § 1 by conspiring to fix and depress compensation paid to employees at red meat processing plants.

The defendants are 11 red meat processing plant owners, including but not limited to JBS USA Food, Tyson Foods, Cargill, Hormell Foods, Perdue Farms, and Seaboard Foods. Together, defendants own 140 red meat processing plants in the country, producing 80 percent of the red meat sold in the U.S. Consulting companies Agri Stats and WMS are also defendants in this litigation.

Lawsuit Allegations

The complaint alleges that since 2014, the defendants sought to depress and fix red meat plant worker wages through the following methods:

• Secret Compensation Surveys: A secret group of red meat processing company executives designed a “Red Meat Industry Compensation Survey” which was completed on an annual basis between 2014 and 2019 to gather detailed information across companies on current and projected future hourly wages, annual salaries, and benefits offered to employees. In 2016, the complaint alleges, JBS Compensation Manger Brad Sievers held a conference call with executives at other red meat processing companies to review survey results and, in his words, “ensure alignment in the group on what we’re reporting.” The President of WMS, the company that administered the survey, warned the processing companies that the manner in which they were sharing future compensation data was inconsistent with federal antitrust law. 
• Secret Annual Meetings: Executives, including those in HR, attended “Red Meat Industry Compensation Meetings.” Prior to meeting in person, agendas were emailed to executives that specified that compensation data would be discussed. The meetings started with the WMS President presenting the findings of the annual compensation survey after which he was allegedly dismissed from the room and the executives discussed the findings in private. The complaint also alleges executives met in private meetings and dinners throughout the duration of the event. According to communications sent from the defendant companies, in order to participate in the compensation survey, attendance at the meeting was mandatory.
• Direct Communications Among Executives: In addition to the annual “Red Meat Industry Compensation Meetings,” executives kept in regular contact with competitors to discuss compensation. A former executive from defendant Seaboard Foods claimed that an HR executive at the company had weekly calls with a group of executives from competitor pork processors during which they “directly exchanged detailed compensation information.”
• Exchanging Compensation Data Through AgriStats: The pork processor defendants (which included JBS, Tyson Foods, and Hormel Food Corporations, among others) subscribed to AgriStats to exchange and receive monthly confidential reports containing wage rates for multiple categories of workers employed at the pork processing companies.
• No Poach Agreements: Defendants allegedly entered into illegal “no poach” agreements to refrain from recruiting and hiring each other’s employees. An investigation revealed that in 2016, JBS and Iowa Premium entered into one such agreement which included agreeing not to “solicit or poach each other’s employees.”

Pending approval, there are $200 million in settlements to date. These include $127.2 million in settlements with Tyson Foods and JBS USA Food; a $57.4 million settlement with Cargill, National Beef Packing, and Hormel Foods; and a $11.25 million settlement with Seaboard Foods and Perdue Foods.

About Berger Montague

Berger Montague is one of the nation’s preeminent law firms focusing on complex civil litigation, class actions and mass torts in federal and state courts throughout the United States. The firm is active in the fields of antitrust, commercial litigation, consumer protection, defective products, environmental law, employment law, securities and whistleblower cases, among other practice areas. For more than 50 years Berger Montague has played leading roles in precedent-setting cases and has recovered over $60 billion for its clients and the classes they have represented. Berger Montague is headquartered in Philadelphia and has offices in Chicago, Minneapolis, San Diego, San Francisco, Toronto, Washington, D.C., and Wilmington, DE.