Class Action Alleges Perdue Retaliated Against ‘Misclassified’ Chicken Farmer for Contacting USDA

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A proposed class action alleges Perdue Farms and Perdue Foods, LLC have misclassified certain chicken farmers as independent contractors when they’re actually bona fide employees. 

The 36-page case was filed by a former Perdue broiler chicken farmer who alleges that despite the company’s “promises of independence,” he and other growers were treated more accurately “as controlled employees under both federal and Georgia law.” 

As an employee, the suit relays, the plaintiff would have been afforded federal and state protections with regard to wages, benefits and other payments Perdue did not provide, even though the company was aware he and other chicken growers should have been considered employees. The case contends that Perdue “wants to have its cake and eat it too” and leaves supposedly “independent” chicken growers – who are often unable to make enough money to afford basic living expenses – to bear a laundry list of financial burdens in the course of their employment. 

“The reason Perdue would like to classify growers as independent contractors and not employees is plain: money. Employees, unlike independent contractors, are entitled to prompt payment of certain financial benefits, such as a minimum wage. Employees are also entitled to compensation for costs and expenses their employers require them to undertake as part of their employment.” 

The plaintiff, an Abbeville, South Carolina resident, also alleges Perdue terminated his grower contract after he contacted the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) about a “potential violation” by Perdue of the Packers & Stockyards Act, a federal law designed to assure fair competition and trade practices and to protect farmers, ranchers and consumers, as well as operators within the livestock, meat and poultry industries. The plaintiff says that after Perdue became aware that he contacted the USDA, his supervisor informed him that “he should not have talked to the government” and made clear that Perdue “was angry with him for having done so.” 

According to the lawsuit, Perdue thereafter retaliated against the plaintiff by, among other actions, denying routine lines of credit while requiring him to make expensive, burdensome upgrades to his farm. The plaintiff’s contract was ultimately terminated when Perdue refused to deliver him flocks, the case claims. 

The suit alleges Perdue took these actions not because of the plaintiff’s performance as a grower but because he reported a potential violation of the law to the appropriate authorities. Perdue’s alleged retaliation amounts to a violation of the Packers & Stockyards Act’s prohibition against “unfair, discriminatory, and unduly prejudicial treatment of farmers,” the case says. 

According to the filing, Perdue, despite directly owning “almost all” of its broiler chicken supply chain, has generally not purchased the farms where the chickens are raised to full weight. Instead, the suit states, Perdue has outsourced the process of raising the birds into broiler growers—i.e., chickens raised for meat consumption—to “independent” farmers.

The case claims, however, that these farmers “are anything but independent” and that Perdue “refuses to grant growers the independence they were promised or the compensation they are entitled to.” Per the complaint, Perdue dictates to chicken farmers everything about their operations including the method, manner and timing of their work; how grow houses are to be built; the specific types of equipment they can use; and the “biosecurity” guidelines they must follow. 

“In reality, Perdue controls virtually every aspect of growers’ operations. There is no ‘independence’ for growers under contract with Perdue, despite the growers shouldering most of the financial risk—including the large investment necessary to build barns (to Perdue’s specifications), and the risk of loss if a flock is lost due to a power outage or disease. Indeed, this financial risk—and Perdue’s unwillingness to compensate growers with the wages and benefits to which employees are entitled—is why Perdue falsely classifies its growers as ‘independent.’ In reality, however, Perdue’s growers are employees entirely under the control of Perdue. Perdue knows the level of control it exercises over growers entitles them to treatment under the law as employees, but it does not treat them as such in order to boost its profits.” 

Moreover, Perdue requires growers to work exclusively for the company, the case continues. After a grower signs a contract, Perdue imposes “onerous guidelines” to hammer home this exclusivity, including by preventing growers and their family members from even visiting a farm “associated with a different integrator,” the lawsuit alleges. 

By misclassifying chicken growers, the filing claims, Perdue “offloads enormous capital costs and financial risks” onto the workers, including costs related to the construction of chicken houses, equipment upgrades, waste management and loss of chickens to natural disasters.

“Put differently,” the complaint says, “Perdue has devised a scheme to saddle growers with risk and debt, while at the same time directing and controlling every aspect of the chicken growing process and refusing to compensate growers in a manner that federal law requires.”

The lawsuit looks to represent all individuals nationwide who worked as broiler chicken growers for Perdue Farms, Inc. or Perdue Foods, LLC at any time between July 21, 2016 and the present. 

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