A job on a slaughter or cutting line at a beef or pork plant, held at any point in a 24-year stretch, may now count toward a payment. Class counsel says settlements in the red-meat wage-fixing case total $202.8 million, and workers employed between January 1, 2000 and February 27, 2024 have until March 26, 2027 to claim, according to Hagens Berman, one of the law firms leading the case.
Eleven companies, one fund
The workers’ lawsuit, filed in federal court in Colorado, accuses large meat processors of conspiring to fix workers’ pay. The case is in the U.S. District Court for the District of Colorado under case number 1:22-cv-02946, with Judge Philip Brimmer presiding, according to the firm’s case page.
The settling companies and their amounts, as the case page lists them: Tyson, $72.5 million; JBS, $55 million; Cargill, $29.75 million; National Beef, $14.2 million; Hormel, Rochelle and Quality Pork together, $13.5 million; Seaboard, $10 million; American Foods, $4 million; Agri Beef and Washington Beef, $1.4 million; Perdue, $1.25 million; Indiana Packers, $1.1 million; and Greater Omaha, $100,000. Those add up to the $202.8 million total. The release also mentions an injunctive settlement with Agri Stats.
Who counts as a plant worker
The class is made up of non-managerial employees, which the firm describes as hundreds of thousands of people. Their jobs include slaughtering and aging, cutting and further processing. The class period runs from January 1, 2000 through February 27, 2024, a date also given on the settlement website, which names Tyson, JBS, Cargill, Hormel and other processors.
A worker who left a plant in 2003 is inside the window, and so is one who started in early 2024. Many of those workers have since retired, moved or changed jobs. For a household, the question is whether anyone in it worked at a covered plant and for which company, since the settlements are with specific processors rather than the whole industry.
Settlement notices tend to carry several dates at once, and The Settlement & Refund Recovery System includes the four-date rule for reading a settlement notice, a step-by-step filing walkthrough and a claim log and payment tracker.
Open the four-date guide for the beef and pork wage settlements →
The dates that matter
Four dates sit on the calendar. The deadline to opt out or object was September 29, 2026, and it has passed. Staying in the class, which is what happens when a worker does nothing about that date, keeps the right to claim. The final approval hearing is November 13, 2026, at 9 a.m. The claims deadline is March 26, 2027. And class counsel’s case page lists April 27, 2027 as the date the fund distribution begins.
The hearing does not close anything. A judge decides at that session whether to give final approval to the settlements, and claims can be filed before and after it, up to the March deadline. A worker who files now is not waiting on the judge.
One note on paper filers: one summary of the case lists an earlier date, February 4, 2027, for forms sent by mail. Anyone mailing a form instead of filing online should confirm the cutoff with the settlement site first.
The defendants and the lawyers
Class counsel says the defendants include companies that produce roughly 80 percent of the nation’s red meat. The lead lawyers named on the firm’s case page are Steve Berman, Shana Scarlett, Breanna Van Engelen, Abby Wolf and Dana Abelson, and the release also names Cohen Milstein Sellers & Toll and Handley Farah & Anderson as court-appointed class attorneys.
How the money is divided
No per-worker figure has been published. A legal settlement summary says the cash is divided pro rata, so each worker’s share depends on how many valid claims come in and on what the court approves for lawyers’ fees and costs. That summary says no documents beyond the participation form are required to prove employment, and that workers who already received a notice need not file a new form but should update their contact information. Workers who did not get a notice must submit a form online or by mail.
Filing on beefporkwages.com before March 26
The route that costs nothing is the settlement website, beefporkwages.com, which class counsel names as the place to file a claim and read the full notice.
Before filing, a worker can write down every plant worked at, the company that owned it, the job title and the years. Old pay stubs, W-2 forms, union cards and Social Security earnings statements usually show an employer name and dates.
Class counsel’s release gives the claims deadline as March 26, 2027 and the final approval hearing as November 13, 2026 at 9 a.m.
For a worker with several plants and several employers over the years, The Settlement & Refund Recovery System adds a step-by-step filing walkthrough and a claim log and payment tracker for recording what was filed and when.
Get the filing walkthrough for the beef and pork wage claim →
This article was produced with AI assistance and edited for accuracy against the class counsel and settlement pages linked above.
