Agri Stats Inks Settlement in 2019 Wage-Suppression Case

DAILY Bites

• Agri Stats agrees to strip competitor plant-level pay fields from 48 broiler reports (and any future turkey reports), while admitting no wrongdoing.

• $398.05M already paid: Earlier processor settlements (Tyson, Perdue, Sanderson, Pilgrim’s, Cargill, etc.) got final approval June 5, 2025; this agreement closes out the last active defendant.

• If finalized, plants won’t see granular rival wage data, a step aimed at reducing pressure to shadow competitors’ hourly rates.

DAILY Discussion

Agri Stats, the benchmarking firm whose reports are widely used across meat and poultry, has struck a conduct-only settlement with workers in a long-running lawsuit over alleged wage suppression. The agreement would end the case against the last active defendant and put new limits on how Agri Stats can share pay information going forward.

Under the proposal, Agri Stats would stop including competitor plant-level compensation fields in 48 of its broiler reports. If it ever restarts turkey reporting, the same restrictions apply. Plaintiffs say those fields let companies reverse-engineer rivals’ labor costs, which could pressure wages down. Agri Stats denies wrongdoing.

This deal follows $398.05 million in earlier settlements from processors — including Tyson, Perdue, Sanderson, Wayne Farms, Pilgrim’s, and Cargill — final approval entered June 5, 2025. Plaintiffs call it the second-largest labor antitrust recovery on record.

The settlement class (for injunctive relief) tracks the litigation class: all employees of the defendant processors’ U.S. poultry processing plants, hatcheries, feed mills and complexes from Jan. 1, 2000 through July 20, 2021. Exclusions include managers, HR staff, office clerical, guards/watchmen, salespersons and government entities.

According to Reuters, plaintiffs weighed trial risk, cost and timing and opted to lock in forward-looking limits on how wage data can appear in Agri Stats’ reports, arguing this curbs the mechanism they say enabled coordination pressure on pay. Separately, the Department of Justice’s own Agri Stats-related enforcement remains active and isn’t affected by this private deal.

Most growers and rural communities feel labor shifts first. If the court locks in these report changes, plant operators would no longer see granular rival wage fields in Agri Stats’ broiler (and any future turkey) publications, a move aimed at reducing the risk that competing employers shadow each other’s hourly rates in ways that hold pay down.

Judge Stephanie Gallagher of the U.S. District Court in Maryland has begun preliminary-approval proceedings. If the court grants final approval after notice and objections are heard, the conduct terms become binding. Workers’ monetary claims against processors were resolved earlier; class information and FAQs remain available at PoultryWages.com.

»Related: Tyson, Cargill to pay $87.5 million in record beef price-fixing settlement