Thread: Pasco meat workers paid $8.4 million for time spent suiting

Your gonna love this one



http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/l ... rs15m.html


Pasco meat workers paid $8.4 million for time spent suiting up
By Sanjay Bhatt

Seattle Times staff reporter


JIM BATES / THE SEATTLE TIMES

Plaintiff Maribel Tapia, who lives in Auburn with her children, German Campis, 13, and Evelyn Jimanez, 4, is putting her share of the award toward her mortgage.

Related
U.S. Supreme Court decision (PDF)

About 800 workers * most of them Latino immigrants * employed at an Eastern Washington beef slaughterhouse in the late 1990s have begun receiving checks for back pay in a recent $8.4 million legal victory against the world's largest meat processor.

Tyson Foods, which inherited the lawsuit when it acquired the Iowa Beef Processors (IBP) slaughterhouse in Pasco in 2001, began making the payments after the U.S. Supreme Court in November resolved all issues in the seven-year legal battle.

The dispute centered on whether employees on the plant's killing and processing floors were entitled to wages for time spent getting in and out of required protective gear before and after their shifts and meal breaks, as well as wages for the time it took to walk between the changing room and production floor.

Nearly all the plaintiffs are Latinos, many of whom entered the country illegally and received amnesty under a 1986 immigration law, said one of their attorneys, David Mark of Seattle.

The case, which illustrates the meat-processing industry's reliance on immigrant labor, comes as Congress debates the issue of illegal immigration.

A bill passed by the House would make illegal presence in the U.S. a felony and would impose criminal penalties on those who employ undocumented workers. A less-punitive measure pending in the Senate would include a guest-worker program and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
Alvarez v. IBP


June 1998 Gabriel Alvarez and other workers at Iowa Beef Processors' plant in Pasco file a class-action suit in U.S. District Court in Spokane, seeking compensation under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act for donning and doffing protective gear before and after the meat processing and during the unpaid 30-minute meal break.

September 2001 U.S. District Judge Robert Whaley rejects IBP's defense and finds that

IBP showed "reckless disregard" for the law.

August 2003 The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals affirms most of Whaley's ruling and also awards compensation for the entire 30-minute meal break.

November 2005 The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously rules that

the time workers spend walking between changing and production areas is paid time.

December 2005 A final judgment is entered awarding $8.4 million

to the workers and $2.7 million to their attorneys.

After private households, the food-manufacturing industry employs the highest percentage of "unauthorized residents," according to a recent report by the Pew Hispanic Center. Tyson says it supports a guest-worker program and a process for undocumented workers here to become citizens.

Plaintiff Maribel Tapia picked up her check for $10,900 on Wednesday. Now 30 and working as a machine operator at a mail-processing firm in Auburn, Tapia worked as a packer at the Pasco plant for eight years, beginning when she was 18.

She recently bought a small house and is using the money to pay down the mortgage.

"I'm very happy," said Tapia, who speaks little English.

The case, Alvarez v. IBP, has broad implications.

Already, it has inspired other lawsuits across the country involving thousands of workers * many of them also immigrants * who seek back pay and damages from the meat- and poultry-processing industry.

Tyson didn't respond to a request for an interview for this article, but the company said in a quarterly shareholders report in February that at least four other wage-and-hour lawsuits against it hinged on the Alvarez ruling. The American Meat Institute, the industry's trade association, said it was disappointed by the court's ruling.

The Alvarez case began in 1998, when several workers filed a class-action suit in federal court in Spokane, alleging violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act. The slaughterhouse pointed to several provisions that it said relieved it of the responsibility to pay its workers for time spent getting in and out of protective gear.

Workers said it took about 10 minutes to put the clothing on and another 10 to take it off.

In 2001, U.S. District Judge Robert Whaley rejected IBP's arguments, and said the workers should be paid for that time. In 2003, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, and said the workers also should be paid for a full 30-minute lunch break, because much of it was spent getting in and out of their gear. Tyson appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, which in November agreed that workers should be compensated for time spent putting on and taking off their protective gear, and also for any walking time that occurs after they put it on and before they take it off.

Since then, attorneys for the plaintiffs have been tracking down about 800 employees who worked at the plant between July 1995 and May 2000. About 80 percent live in Washington, 10 percent in Oregon and 10 percent are scattered elsewhere, said Mark, one of the attorneys.

He said about half are receiving more than $10,000.

Shift began at 5:45 a.m.

Maribel Tapia was one of 10 children born in Los Angeles to illegal immigrants who crossed over from Mexico in the late 1960s.

She later moved to Pasco, where an aunt and uncle worked at the slaughterhouse. When she turned 18, Tapia got a job there, too, working as a packer for $7.25 an hour. Her shift began at 5:45 a.m.

On the plant's vast processing floor, cooled carcasses were dropped onto eight processing belts, where some 400 line workers performed 145 different duties along the meat's journey from meat hooks to small packages.

After standing in line to get a protective frock, Tapia would go to the women's locker room to put it on, along with safety goggles and other protective gear.

Meat packers had to wear even more gear: chain-linked metal aprons, leggings, vests and sleeves, along with Plexiglas arm guards and puncture-resistant Kevlar gloves.

Tapia assumed her station at the end of the fast-moving processing line, where she bagged about six pieces of meat per minute. Employees received a 15-minute rest break after two hours, and a 30-minute unpaid lunch break after another two hours.

Tapia says the breaks were actually shorter because of the time required to take off protective gear, stand in line at the cafeteria or restroom, and then put the gear back on.

After the last piece of meat was processed, workers had to hose down and scrub their aprons, sleeves, rubber gloves, and boots, store those in their lockers and return knives to collection boxes. The cleanup time also was unpaid.

Tapia says she felt cheated out of wages from the first day. Then she met Maria Martinez. "For me, she is my godmother," Tapia said. "An angel, an angel."

Plant job was step up

Martinez had been a meat cutter at the slaughterhouse since 1988.

Like Tapia, she was the daughter of illegal Mexican immigrants and moved to Pasco because of a relative who worked at the plant. She still lives in Pasco but no longer works at the plant.

But back then, for Martinez and others whose only job experience had been picking fruit and vegetables, working in a meat-packing plant was a step up. "When you're an immigrant, you just want a paycheck," Martinez said.

The Latino workers didn't know they had any voice and couldn't communicate with the shop steward of the Teamsters Local 556 of which they were members * a gap that organized labor has only begun to close. For decades, the IBP plant had a chief shop steward position that was part-time union, part-time company benefits clerk, and the largely Latino work force complained that the union wasn't advocating for their interests.

In April 1998, Martinez became the first elected shop steward at the plant and was the only union activist fluent in English. Months later, the workers filed suit in federal court in Spokane.

Martinez said she finally came to realize "it was the workers' union, not the company union."

As time went on, more workers joined the suit.

No longer eats beef

Tapia hasn't forgotten how much she disliked working at the plant.

She doesn't eat beef anymore. She makes sure her son and daughter go to school and do their homework because she doesn't want them ever to work in a processing plant.

Martinez left the plant last year and now works in a health-care clinic that serves those living in the Pasco area

Mark filed a follow-up lawsuit against the plant, seeking back pay for workers who didn't join the Alvarez suit, and for those who did but continued working at the plant after 2000. A federal district judge awarded the workers $11.4 million last July.

Many workers are hard to track, Mark said, because they entered the country illegally and have since left the plant.

yeah one thing this shows is that those illegals wont stay working the tough jobs for long. Using our education at the expense of our kids and using our tax dollars their anchor babies will gradually start demanding better jobs and driving lawsuits when applicable.

This shows even the corrupt sellout businesses taht their 'cheap labor' which will cost our country its future will be short lived and eventually end up costong ALL of us much more than ever imagined.

Secure the borders now.
Get tough on employers
Dont allow anchor babies to get US citizenship unless a parent is legally here
Deport the criminal illegals asap
Continue securing border and THEN MAYBE have some kind of worker program (maybe a focused industry) but one that DOESNT confer citizenship rights to them

They are doing everything they can to change our laws......how many of you have every stood in front of a time clock, waiting to clock in .....should we be paid for that?

How about union workers, that have to put on special clothing to work, shouldn't they be paid for their time?

These illegal employers are reaping what they have brought on to we, the citizens.....let's make a list of these companies and flood them with emails.

Plaintiff Maribel Tapia picked up her check for $10,900 on Wednesday. Now 30 and working as a machine operator at a mail-processing firm in Auburn, Tapia worked as a packer at the Pasco plant for eight years, beginning when she was 18.

Maribel Tapia was one of 10 children born in Los Angeles to illegal immigrants who crossed over from Mexico in the late 1960s.

"I'm very happy," said Tapia, who speaks little English.

What's wrong with this picture

I'd also like to see what kind of "suit" they put on/take off that takes 10 minutes. After all, these people aren't astronauts.

No wonder chicken costs us a fortune these days!

I don't buy TYSON at all, ever, because of the illegal alien connection but now I understand why it is so expensive.

I guess it will go up again soon.

Shes 30 yrs old and been working since she was 18. Hmmm born here Illeglly to Illegal parents and she still has not bothered to Learn OUR Language. Yep this one needs to be kicked out for lack of trying to assimilate

Oh yeah, BldHnd. And they only came to get a job.

She's happy? I'd be delighted if she would take the money and a couple hundred of her friends and go the hell back where she came from.

Anyone else notice the first one mentioned is going to "pay off the mortgage" Hmmmmmmmmmm....... how'd they get a mortgage on slave wages at a job that didn't pay them to change their clothes?

I know when I worked at a chicken farm we had sanitary routiens to go through and that included mandatory showers and we weren't paid for it. We also paid for alot of tools to do our job better out of our own pocket. There was no reimbursment.

And I agree with pixeldoctor......they won't be at these jobs long if they all get Amnesty and all the other benefits. That's why there can't be a reward for being here illegally and refusing to assimilate. There's no excuse to be here that long and not have picked up some of the language. And major loopholes to be an illegal immigrant and own a home! The only benefit from all this is to bring it out in the light as to the corruption of alot of these businesses.

I dont buy Tyson and I dont buy Meat at Food Lion because they get their meat from IBP.

Tell me more about IBP, JP. I'm headed for NC soon and although I don't generally buy meat form food lion because it looks pretty yucky to me, I don't want to find out that Lowes Foods has some similar thing going on. I may raise my own chickens and pay some old retired farmer to wring their necks for me before I get all done. LOL