Smithfield Ignored Covid Hazard Pay in Tallying OT, Workers Say

Smithfield Fresh Meats Corp. allegedly shorted thousands of meatpacking workers on overtime by excluding the extra hazard pay they received for working during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to a lawsuit filed in a federal court in Illinois.

Smithfield provided the workers an extra $4 an hour in “Responsibility Bonus” pay to encourage them to continue working during the pandemic despite the “dangerous” conditions at its slaughterhouses, the complaint says.

But Smithfield failed to include these wages in the workers’ regular rates of pay when calculating their overtime, according to the complaint filed Thursday in the U.S. District Court for the ...