NORFOLK
Two hundred and thirty current and former workers have sued Smithfield Foods Inc., saying they weren't paid for 30 to 45 minutes of daily overtime at its plant in Smithfield.
The suit, filed Friday in U.S. District Court and made public Monday, alleged two types of violations of the U.S. Fair Labor Standards Act:
- Workers say they were not paid for the 30 minutes it takes each day to don and remove protective gear and walk to and from the production line.
- The employees' workday officially ends when a federal agriculture inspector stamps the last pig after it is killed and its head is severed. Yet "the pig continues to be handled by processing employees for approximately an additional 15 minutes," the lawsuit says.
The violations, the suit said, have gone on "for many years," despite warnings from employees and officials of Teamsters Local 822 in Norfolk.
Justin Keating, a Washington-based lawyer for the workers, said some might be owed more than $2,000 a year.
Smithfield spokesman Jerry Hostetter said the company had not yet received a copy of the suit. A lawyer for the workers said some of them might be owed more than $2,000 a year for the overtime they claim wasn't paid.
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