Meat money

Editor’s note: Roby Brock, with our content partner Talk Business, wrote this report. He can be reached at [email protected]

Tyson Foods and union workers ended a 12-year, 12-state lawsuit over worker pay with a $32 million settlement.

The lawsuit, brought forward by the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), alleged that Springdale-based Tyson Foods violated the Fair Labor Standards Act by not paying employees for the time spent putting on and taking off protective gear in food processing and meatpacking plants.

The settlement, under which Tyson admitted no wrongdoing, affected as many as 17,000 poultry workers in 41 plants in 12 states.

“Every American deserves to get paid for the work they do,” said Joe Hansen, UFCW International President. “We’re changing the way meatpackers do business and making them pay thousands of workers correctly.”

The settlement will result in payments, averaging around $1,000 per worker, to current and former Tyson workers across the country. The affected poultry workers work at Tyson Foods plants in Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Mississippi, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee and Texas.

Tyson Foods employs approximately 117,000 workers worldwide.