Tyson Foods Wants the Supreme Court to Let It Keep Stealing Workers’ Wages
Mother Jones
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Workers have filed dozens of lawsuits against Tyson Foods alleging millions of dollars in “wage theft” for its failure to keep wage and hour records and to properly pay workers for overtime as required by the Fair Labor Standards Act (FSLA). On Tuesday, Tyson came before the US Supreme Court and argued that the justices should make those lawsuits go away. Tyson Foods v. Bouaphakeo is truly a David-versus-Goliath lawsuit, with about 3,000 low-income, often immigrant workers going up against the world’s second-largest meat processor, which has more than $30 billion in annual sales.
Tyson has asked the nation’s highest court to throw out a lawsuit that resulted in a $6 million jury verdict against the company in Iowa for cheating its workers out of earned overtime. Tyson doesn’t just want the case thrown out, though. The verdict at issue amounts to peanuts for the multinational corporation—a little more than two hours’ worth of Tyson’s annual profits. The company also wants the court to issue a broad ruling that would effectively immunize it against future class actions for wage and hour theft, and make it much harder for workers everywhere to join together to bring such claims. If it wins this case, Tyson could have it both ways: It could effectively continue to violate the FSLA and escape liability for it in court.
Tyson is one of three significant legal assaults on class actions before the court this term, waged by big businesses seeking to make it more difficult for workers and consumers to join together to sue them for misconduct. Weighing in on Tyson’s side in the case are other corporate giants, including Wal-Mart, Dow Chemical, the US Chamber of Commerce, and the National Association of Manufacturers.
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Tyson Foods Wants the Supreme Court to Let It Keep Stealing Workers’ Wages
