WASHINGTON, D.C. — Hundreds of demonstrators rallied outside the U.S. Supreme Court Nov. 12 in support of 3,000 Iowa pork plant workers who filed a class action lawsuit against a Tyson Foods slaughterhouse, hoping the high court will uphold a $5.8 million judgment awarding back pay to the Storm Lake plant employees.
The workers claim they are owed back pay for the time they spent daily putting on and taking off protective gear and other work-related functions. Tyson had not kept records, the court was told, as the workers tried to prove their damages based on an expert witness’ statistical inferences from hundred of videotapes showing how long it took the workers to get ready.
The "knife-wielding" workers need the protective clothing while working on the plant’s slaughter or "kill" floor and on the processing or "fabrication" floor. The Springdale, Ark.-based company is asking the court to throw out the lower court award, declaring that workers should not be able to rely on statistics and overtime averages to prove their case under federal labor law.
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, whose vote could prove crucial, suggested to Tyson’s attorneys that the company appeared to have committed litigation missteps that could doom its case. "I just don’t understand your arguments," Kennedy told Carter Phillips, one of Tyson’s lawyers.
Kennedy told him the workers seeking to recover overtime pay fell under the Fair Labor Standards Act, and they may use the statistics to prove their case.
Phillips argued the Tyson workers did not have enough in common to support their claims together. The case, he said, concerned "more than 400 jobs, which required widely differing amounts of time to perform their donning, doffing and washing tasks."
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg responded, saying the basic tasks "weren’t all that different."
In the case, Tyson Foods vs. Bouaphakeo, No. 14-1146, a lower-court judge ruled the more than 3,000 workers could band together, awarding them $5.8 million. It was not clear how the money will be distributed, should the Supreme Court rule in their favor.
Phillips said it is too late to allocate that money in a sensible fashion. "You can’t unscramble this egg at this point," he said.
The court is expected to issue its decision in the spring of 2016.
