Hormel corporate headquarters in Austin, Minnesota. (Photo: Myotus/creative commons)
Workers at a pork processing facility in Austin, Minnesota say Hormel Foods refused to abide by the state’s paid sick leave law for 14 months and, during this time, allegedly stole compensation from as many as 1,600 workers.
On July 30, UFCW 663 announced a class-action lawsuit, demanding that Hormel hand over the compensation workers earned, but never got. “Everyone deserves the right to rest and recover without fear,” said Daniel Lenway, who works at the Austin facility and is lead plaintiff in the lawsuit, at a July 30 press conference at the Austin Labor Center.
In 2023, the Minnesota legislature passed the Earned Sick and Safe Time (ESST) statute, that says bosses have to give workers paid leave when they are sick, taking care of a family member, or attending to other urgent matters, like seeking help for domestic abuse.
But the lawsuit says Hormel did not comply with this rule from January 1, 2024, when the statute was enacted, until March 1, 2025. The company refused to give most of its workers the benefit, instead telling them that if they missed work because of injury or illness, they had to use their paid vacation to cover it, Tim Louris, the attorney representing the workers in the suit, said at the press conference.
UFCW 663 challenged the company for violating the collective bargaining agreement, and a few months ago, a labor arbitrator ruled in the union’s favor. As a result of that ruling, the company started complying with the statute in March, 2025, Louris said. But even though the company is following the statute now, workers want back compensation for the 14 months they were deprived. “The lawsuit demands ESST benefits that were earned but unpaid, and were not given to workers during 2024 and the first two months of 2025,” Louris said.
This is the first lawsuit of its kind since the ESST statute was passed.
“ESST matters to us,” said Lenway, who has worked at the Austin facility for about 30 years. “It gives us the time to care for ourselves and our families when we need it the most. It means we don’t have to risk our jobs or our wages just to take care of our health or our families.”
Though Louris declined to give a specific number, the company allegedly stole a significant amount. The lawsuit says during 2024, Hormel “willfully failed and refused to provide” the 48 hours of ESST benefits it owed Lenway. Louris told Workday Magazine that for those who were full-time in 2025, workers are owed another 10 hours’ worth of benefits for January and February.
“Hormel must follow Minnesota law and stop disrespecting its workers,” said Senator Sandra Pappas (DFL-St. Paul), the chief author of the ESST law, in a press statement. “I look forward to UFCW Local 663’s day in court.”
When Workday Magazine reached out to Hormel for a response to the allegations, the company said, “We do not comment on pending litigation.”
Hormel is notorious in Minnesota labor history. From August 1985 to September 1986, 1,500 Hormel workers in Austin, then represented by UFCW P-9, went on one of the longest strikes the state has ever seen, to protest a wage freeze. The company broke the strike by hiring replacement workers, and even fired workers at other plants for honoring the picket.
In 1987, a year after the strike ended, Hormel leased half of its Austin plant to Quality Pork Processors. Those workers had the more dangerous killing and butchering jobs, and were paid less, while using Hormel’s equipment and selling the meat to Hormel, in what labor historians say was more thinly-veiled union busting. Yet, workers went on to unionize Quality Pork Processing, with UFCW 663 announcing its largest-ever wage increase on August 2, 2025.
Peter Rachleff is the co-executive director of the East Side Freedom Library, a labor scholar, and author of a book about the Hormel strike. He told Workday Magazine, “This is a company that has been a poster child for exploitation of workers, and whatever means they can find to exploit, they will use.”
Workers say that, when it comes to enforcement of the ESST law, the stakes are high. “When ESST became law, workers at Hormel finally got a way to get paid when we got sick,” said Lenway. “Before the law came on, when we got sick and called in, we would actually get disciplined.”
According to Louris, workers were even fired due to illness. Before ESST, he said, “they did not have any rights to paid sick leave.”