Wisconsin Ag Connection - Judge Sides with Hormel Workers in Donning & Doffing Dispute

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Judge Sides with Hormel Workers in Donning & Doffing Dispute
Wisconsin Ag Connection - 12/30/2013

Another group of Wisconsin food plant workers have succeeded in their quest to be paid for the time they spend changing into work clothes while at the job site. Last week, a Rock County judge ruled that the Hormel Foods facility in Beloit is responsible for compensating its employees while they dress into their uniforms, wash their hands and walk to various work stations within the building.

The class action suit was filed by workers who claim the company required them to do these tasks during unpaid break times.

Hormel has been ordered to pay over $195,000 to 330 employees by January 21.

Similar cases have been decided on the side of Wisconsin workers in recent years. Last summer, the 4th District Court of Appeals overturned a decision in Jefferson County that permitted Tyson Prepared Foods in Jefferson to withhold pay to workers as they changed their uniforms and protective gear. Tyson said these tasks were not an 'integral part' of their job responsibilities. But the appeals court said the workers were entitled to compensations because of donning and doffing labor rights, which is a federal provision in the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act that states employees should be paid during any prep time spent at the workplace.

Two years ago, a federal judge approved a settlement between workers at the Oscar Mayer plant in Madison and Kraft Foods, which owns the facility, for not paying its workers for the time they spent changing into work clothes. That case was disputed over a five-year period and involved about a thousand workers. And in 2007, employees of Kerry Ingredients in Vesper, Owen, Jackson and Beloit took legal action after a U.S. Supreme Court case involving a similar company in Minnesota ruled that employees of food plants had to be paid while putting on and removing safety equipment, as well as walking to their job stations.

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