U.S. District Judge Stephanie A. Gallagher of the United States District Court of Maryland dismissed challenges to a 2019 lawsuit alleging collusion to fix and depress wages paid to processing plant workers. The lawsuit was filed in August 2019 with all major broiler integrators named as co-defendants along with AgriStats Inc. and Webber, Meng, Sahl & Company.
The suit alleged that the defendants obtained wage data through their participation in the Agri Stats Inc. industry benchmark service. In addition, it is alleged that in-person meetings took place concurrently with regional and national meetings during which wage rates were discussed with the intent to establish and or depress remuneration.
The defendants claimed that the plaintiffs lacked standing, a contention rejected by Judge Gallagher who ruled that hourly chicken employees' interests were not significantly different from salaried broiler and turkey workers. The assertion advanced by specific turkey and broiler integrators that the plaintiffs did not provide details on how integrators were involved in alleged collusion was rejected by the Court. In her ruling, Judge Gallagher noted, "while plaintiffs may not baselessly speculate there is no indication that the allegation in question is speculative particularly given the inclusion of a source for the information”.
The wage lawsuit is yet another strike against AgriStats Inc. following on the larger case involving allegations of collusion to manipulate production volume and hence price.