The United States Justice Department is challenging labour deals recently negotiated by the largest meat-packing companies.
Department lawyers told a federal judge it wants the agreements to include safeguards against future anticompetitive behaviour. There have been allegations the packers conspired to hold down wages.
The department said the agreements generally provide monetary relief but lack injunctions designed to prevent future wage fixing or exchanges of competitively sensitive compensation information.
The deals named are with JBS USA, Tyson Foods, Cargill, National Beef Packing Co., Hormel Foods, Seaboard Foods, Perdue Farms, American Foods Group and several other processors.
There is a class-action lawsuit alleging that beef and pork processors conspired beginning in 2000 to suppress worker compensation and exchanged detailed, non-public information about employee pay. A federal judge denied the processors’ motion to dismiss the case in March 2025, finding the workers had plausibly alleged that compensation surveys continued through the class period.
The Department of Justice argued that monetary settlements alone are inadequate because the workers alleged the conduct continued through the filing of the lawsuit and originally sought permanent injunctive relief. The department said none of the proposed settlements with processors it reviewed contains provisions preventing the companies from engaging in similar conduct in the future.
The government suggested potential settlement provisions could prohibit processors from coordinating with competitors on worker compensation and from exchanging competitively sensitive compensation information. DOJ pointed to restrictions obtained in previous litigation involving poultry processors as a model for possible relief.
DOJ did not object to settlements involving Agri Stats or compensation consulting firm Webber, Meng, Sahl and Co. because the government has already obtained injunctive relief against them through separate proceedings. The department also said it had not yet reviewed proposed settlements involving Smithfield Foods and Murphy-Brown of Missouri.
The government said it has begun discussions with the parties ahead of a Nov. 13 fairness hearing and asked the court to require them to return with proposed injunctive relief if its concerns are not resolved.