Indiana Meat Plant’s Alleged Fraud Doesn’t Prove Wage-Fixing (1)

An Indiana meat processing plant’s employment of undocumented workers and alleged fraud in work authorization documents wasn’t directly linked to workers’ depressed wages and didn’t violate federal racketeering law, a federal court ruled.

Andrew O’Shea, an employee of the Indiana Packers Corp. in Delphi, Ind., claimed that human resources employees at the plant made false statements on I-9 employment verification forms and accepted false documents when hiring people unauthorized to work in the U.S., which lowered the wages paid to IPC’s hourly production workers. O’Shea alleged the company had done so for hundreds and possibly thousands of workers in the ...