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The U.S. Supreme Court decided 6-2 Tuesday to allow employees of Tyson Foods, Inc., to join together in a class action suit to recover pay lost to wage theft.
The ruling is a victory for 3,000 hourly workers at an Iowa pork processing plant who sued Tyson for time spent “donning and doffing” protective equipment and walking to and from the job floor. A district court certified the workers as a class, but the company challenged that ruling, arguing the workers should not have been able to join together in a single lawsuit because each worker’s claimed loss was different.
Lawyers for Tyson cited the Supreme Court’s 2011 decision in Walmart Stores Inc. v. Dukes, which rejected a class action suit by more than a million female employees claiming pay discrimination. In that case, a majority of the justices found the women had distinct and different employment experiences and thus lacked the “commonality” needed to proceed as a class.
The court rejected the argument that the rule in the Walmart case should hold for the Tyson workers. Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote for the majority and was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.
Public Citizen, which served as co-counsel for the workers in the Supreme Court, praised the decision.
“Today’s decision is a strong reaffirmation of workers’ rights to join together in taking their employer to court for failing to pay wages due under state and federal laws,” said Scott Michelman, attorney for Public Citizen.
“The Supreme Court rejected the corporate defense bar’s strong push to eliminate the ability of workers and consumers to litigate common claims through class actions – which are critical to holding corporations accountable for systemic wrongdoing.”
Learn more about wage theft in our special Workday Minnesota series.