According to the May 13 Washington Post, Perdue, one of the nation’s largest poultry companies, will pay an additional eight minutes each workday and will record and pay employees for such activities in the future. The settlement will go to 25,000 former and current workers for a two-year time period. Each person can receive up to $1,000 in back pay.

The eight minutes agreed to in the settlement represents a small portion of set up, preparation, and clean up time that the bosses force workers to do "off the clock." Through such practices the employers have cheated workers out of as much as an hour of pay a day, putting millions of dollars into the pockets of the corporations. Not paying workers for this preparation time also reduces their retirement benefits because contributions to their pension plan is based on the number of paid work hours.

In many cases such preparation time can run as high as 40 minutes a day as workers don the hair nets, boots, earplugs, gloves, aprons, and other equipment. On each break workers must remove the safety and sanitary equipment, then rinse, sanitize, and put it on again before going back to work.

Delmarva is the peninsula on the eastern shore of the Chesapeake Bay that includes Delaware and parts of Maryland and Virginia. It is one of the main chicken growing and processing regions in the United States.

The Labor Department has also filed suit against Tyson Foods, accusing the company of underpaying workers at its Blountsville, Alabama, plant. Tyson employs 65,000 poultry processing workers.

Tyson officials said putting on and taking off the protective equipment was nothing more than putting on clothing, similar to a construction worker putting on a hard hat.

In a related development May 4, Delmarva chicken catchers employed by Perdue won their first union contract following a three-year fight for union recognition. The workers work at facilities in Accomac, Virginia; Georgetown, Delaware; and Salisbury, Maryland.

Chicken catchers grab chickens from the houses where they are raised and crate them for shipment. Teams of seven to 10 workers wade through warehouses lined with ammonia-soaked chicken waste to collect the birds, where dust particles and bird feathers blow around. They usually work in the middle of the night when the chickens are supposed to be more docile. The chicken catchers are paid on a piece-rate basis, ranging from $1.86 per thousand chickens to $2.50 per crew member per thousand chickens. They catch as many as 50,000 chickens in an 8-to-12 hour shift, lifting three and four at a time in each hand as they cram them into steel cages, trying to avoid being pecked and scratched.

Chicken catchers and forklift operators, who place the cages of chickens on the back of trucks, had approached Local 27 of the United Food and Commercial Workers Union (UFCW) seeking to be recognized as regular employees eligible for overtime and health and sick benefits, rather than independent contractors. Perdue had re-categorized these workers in 1991 as "independent contractors." The chicken catchers also launched a fight to win the back pay owed to them for overtime hours worked but never paid.

Last year, the 100 Perdue chicken catchers won their lawsuit for back overtime pay. Perdue was ordered to pay them $1.7 million.Then in July of 2001, they voted to join the UFCW.

According to UFCW Local 27 president Buddy Mays, "It is the first-ever collective bargaining agreement to cover chicken catching crews." More than 600 people work as chicken catchers on the Delmarva peninsula. Chicken catchers and their supporters had launched an aggressive campaign for union recognition, including press conferences and leafleting outside grocery stores.

Janice Lynn is a member of UFCW Local 27 in Landover, Maryland.  
 
 
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