Three Chicken Plants Hit in 2019 Raids Agree to Pay Back Wages
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) Three Mississippi chicken processing plants among those targeted in one of the largest workplace immigration raids in the U.S. in the past decade have agreed to pay back wages after federal officials found they failed to pay minimum wage and overtime to their workers.
The U.S. Department of Labor announced Friday that three plants have paid $45,719 in back wages to 129 employees.
The plants targeted in the investigation were a Canton complex owned by Peco Foods of Tuscaloosa, Alabama; a Morton complex owned by Koch Foods of Park Ridge, Illinois; and Pearl River Foods of Carthage, a company headquartered in Gainesville, Georgia.
The Labor Department's Wage and House Division found the employers failed to issue final paychecks to multiple workers. Officials also found that Pearl River Foods deducted so much money for uniforms that employees were illegally paid less than minimum wage. Investigators also determined Koch failed to include production bonuses when calculating overtime, another legal violation.
Read more: https://www.jacksonfreepress.com/news/2020/nov/23/three-chicken-plants-hit-2019-raids-agree-pay-back/