Tyson Workers Cry 'Foul'

Chickens are big business. Americans spend $40 billion a year eating them and more of them eat Tyson's chicken than any other. But CBS Investigative Correspondent Roberta Baskin reports that Tyson's employees and the U.S. Department of Labor are crying "foul" because Tyson isn't paying workers for some of their time and costs.

Many people who work processing poultry don't take home that much money to begin with, only $240 to $260 a week. Yet Tyson continues to trim their paychecks, even though it may be violating the law by doing so.

Every day some 72,000 workers head to jobs at one of Tyson's 83 poultry processing plants. Once inside, the work is tedious and dangerous. Fifty chickens per minute travel on conveyor. They have to be plucked, cut up and packaged, often in below freezing conditions, and the workers say getting ready for all of that takes time.

"I have to put on a smock, I have to put on an apron, I have to put on sleeves, I have to put on a chain glove," says former employee Sharon Mitchell.

But at Tyson's the preparation is done on the employee's time, not the company's. The line workers don't get paid for that. Neither do their supervisors, like Cheryl, who asked we not reveal her identity.

"I have to go into the supply room, get my smock, put it on, go stand in line, get my hair nets, my ear plugs, sleeves, gloves. I have cutting gloves I have to wear. So that's 20 minutes every morning that I'm not being compensated for," she says.

Even though workers are supposed to have two 30-minute breaks, they lose part of that time spent having to remove their protective clothing if, say, they are covered with chicken innards.

And the workers do not get paid for time spent cleaning up at the end of the day.

"You have to wash it off," says Sharon. "Your chain, your glove, your smock, your gloves, your apron. All these things have to be de-sanitized. If not, you're breaking the law."

Sharon was fired in January, Tyson says for poor performance. She says it was for union organizing. But Sharon saved her old pay stubs to demonstrate how she was cheated.

"These are four and half, five hours of overtime money," says Sharon as she looks at a calendar and her pay stubs. "Those are groceries that can be bought, clothes that could be bought, just necessities, nothing extravagant," she says.

And Cheryl notes, "That's about 40 minutes a day, five days a week, that's $54 a week, $2,800 a year."

Tyson wouldn't allow CBS cameras inside its plants. Instead they provided its own video, demonstrating how little time it takes to prepare for work.

But last year, a Labor Department survey of poultry processing plants across the country, including Tyson's, confirmed much of what workers told us.

"They didn't count break time. They didn't count preliminary and time spent working before the line started, time spent working fter the line stopped. We told them that those were hours worked," explains John Fraser, acting director of Wage and Hour at the Department of Labor. He says Tyson was warned it had to pay for all hours on the job.

But that's not Tyson's understanding of the rules.

"They are paid when the work comes down the line to their station and they begin working. The time that is required to prepare for that work is minimal and it is not compensated." says Tyson's director of media, public and governmental affairs, Archie Schaffer.

And that is not the only difference of opinion. The Labor Department also found some plants charged its employees for some of their protective clothing.

Kelly, one of the workers, says she thinks she's being cheated out of a chunk of her paycheck.

"I have spent as much as $7 in one day for all of my equipment," she says.

"In some of our union plants paying for those replacement supplies is a part of the contract," says Schaffer.

Fraser says, "We've told the industry it's not following the law."

Nevertheless at Tyson, it's still the policy. "We firmly believe we are in clompliance with their rules and regulations. The Department of Labor has investigated our plants, many many times and has not cited us for violations in that area," adds Schaffer. But Fraser says when they do investigations they don't issue citations.

John Fraser says that the Labor Department will take action if Tyson doesn't comply. But attorney Joe Sellers isn't waiting. This week he filed a class action lawsuit against Tyson on behalf of workers in over a dozen plants. He says the company is pocketing $100 million a year that actually belongs to the workers.

"This case has been brought on behalf of regular workers, who have been denied the chance to be paid for work that they have performed. Several have actually been told that, 'This is the policy. You either work here on these terms or you leave'," Sellers says.

The class action lawsuit has been filed in federal court in Alabama. The Fair Labor Practices Act applies to all industries with hourly wage employees. Workers are not supposed to be doing work off the clock.

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