U.S. chicken industry accused of conspiring to keep immigrant wages down

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Companies producing more than 90% of America’s chicken have conspired to depress wages for a largely immigrant work force in some of the nation’s most dangerous jobs, according to a lawsuit.

, the plaintiffs claim that wage increases were offset with changes to other benefits, such as higher health-insurance premiums. Further, their economists found that wages at non-poultry food plants were higher and increased faster than those at the defendants’ plants.

The scheme began in 2009 or earlier, according to the lawsuit. It says executives in charge of human resources, compensation and benefits would meet at “off the books” meetings in Destin, often around the same time as an annual human-resources seminar held by the U.S. Poultry & Egg Assn. The meetings didn’t appear on published schedules, according to the suit.Information was also shared through annual surveys commissioned by a rotation of the largest three processors, the suit says.

The anonymous information exchanged each month through Agri Stats is specific enough that it is traceable to specific plants: The companies “used the Agri Stats exchange of current wage data to fix and harmonize the wages,” the suit says. It says they used the data “to monitor, and confirm that no conspirator deviated from, the wage-fixing conspiracy.

Corporate headquarters also instructed plant officials to obtain information about wages offered by competitors, according to the complaint. The suit says human resources staff would regularly speak to discuss pay, raises and benefits. In 2017, for example, a Tyson plant in Union City, Tenn., was planning to expand, and a manager at a nearby Pilgrim’s plant requested future pay rates for the positions, according to the complaint. The suit says that another manager at the Pilgrim’s plant called a nearby Perdue facility for its rates, and that this information and more was then compiled into a document and sent to Pilgrim’s executives at corporate headquarters in Colorado.

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That’s what happens to ILLEGAL immigrants who enter this country ILLEGALLY. SendThemAllBack

So they're... chickens?

Immigrants? I think you mean illegal aliens.

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