A class-action lawsuit accusing major poultry processors of working together to hold down plant workers’ wages will move into the next stage of litigation after a court ruling last Wednesday. However, some of the largest corporate players, including Tyson Foods, Pilgrim’s Pride, and Perdue, could be off the hook unless workers fine-tune their case by mid-October.
Read MoreLast week, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) announced 10 new appointments to an independent committee advising food safety and inspection policy.
Read MoreLast week, a group of organizations representing meatpacking workers filed a civil rights complaint with the USDA against dominant meatpackers. The Title VI Civil Rights Act complaint alleges that Tyson Foods’ and JBS’s response to COVID-19 had a disproportionately harmful, disparate impact on their employees of color.
Read MoreA group of farmers and ranchers last week joined the leading meatpacking workers’ union to demand greater protections for meatpacking workers, acknowledging a shared fight against mistreatment by large meatpackers in the wake of COVID-19.
Read MoreMeatpacking plants have become national hot spots for the novel coronavirus.
Read MoreCOVID-19 has upended America’s food supply. With the loss of big buyers in restaurants and school districts, farmers without a place to sell their foods are dumping milk, tilling crops back into the ground, and euthanizing egg-laying hens.
Read MoreWhile the country grapples with the COVID-19 crisis, USDA food safety officials have been making decisions that could further sicken Americans and threaten frontline food workers.
Read MoreLast week, nearly 500 cattle producers from 14 states rallied in Omaha, Nebraska to denounce corporate control over cattle markets and to demand that the Trump administration do something to fix it.
Read MoreIn 2015, a group of Peruvian shepherds working for sheep ranchers in the western U.S. filed an antitrust suit alleging that the ranchers had colluded to hold down wages and avoid competing for labor. A judge initially dismissed the case and a three-judge panel on the Tenth Circuit agreed this July. On Tuesday, the plaintiffs petitioned for another chance at their day in court. (The Open Markets Institute plans to file an amicus brief in support of their petition.)
Read MoreLate last month, the Trump administration cleared the way for chicken plants to increase their processing line speeds from 140 birds per minute to 175 birds per minute. The change deals a blow to workers and reverses the efforts of labor and animal welfare advocates, who fought to halt poultry line speed increases in 2014. It also indicates the administration will likely soon remove line speed limits in hog slaughter and lower workplace injury reporting requirements throughout all sectors of the economy.
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