Workers File Class Action suit against Hormel Foods 

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First-of-Its-Kind Class Action Targets Hormel for Alleged Earned Sick and Safe Time Violations

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

July 30, 2025

Austin, MN – Today, workers at Hormel Foods announced that they have filed a class action lawsuit alleging that Hormel violated earned sick and safe time laws. The lawsuit alleges that Hormel failed and refused to provide Local 663 members with paid leave benefits required by the Minnesota Earned Sick and Safe Time law.

UFCW Local 663 represents over 1600 essential meatpacking workers at Hormel who are a critical link in the world’s food supply chain.

The Class Action lawsuit alleges that Hormel:

  • Made employees use contractual vacation benefits to receive pay during ESST absences.
  • Willfully failed and refused to provide employees with the ESST benefit accruals to which they are entitled for their work between January 1, 2024 and March 1, 2025.
  • Refused to provide most employees with ESST benefits that they earned in 2024. Hormel then denied those employees their statutory right to carry over their accrued, unused ESST benefits into calendar year 2025.
  • Failed to give all or most employees any of the ESST benefits that they earned in January and February 2025. 

Dan Lenway, a UFCW 663 member who works at Hormel, said, “ESST matters because it gives us the time to care for ourselves or our families when we need it most. It means we don’t have to risk our jobs or wages just to take care of our health or our families. Everyone deserves the right to rest and recover without fear. ESST is dignity at work.”

“Workers, advocates, and legislators fought hard to make Earned Sick and Safe Time law. Now, ESST is a statewide standard,” said UFCW Local 663 President Rena Wong. “UFCW 663 members know what it means to fight for what we deserve and win. After all, workers at Hormel set the standard for wages in the meatpacking industry.

If Quality Pork Processors can implement ESST correctly, and they are right next door, why can’t Hormel?”

Senate Majority Leader Erin Murphy was also among the speakers at the event and said:

“There are more than three million working people in Minnesota, and earned sick and safe time upholds the rights and health of every single one of them. 

We are rightfully proud of our state’s role in the nation’s food supply. The backbone of that industry is the hard-working people on our farms, in our grocery stores, and at our processing plants.

I am proud to see that these thousands of UFCW workers are not giving up without a fight. I am rooting for them, and so is every person in this state who believes in hard work and access to healthcare. It was with the advocacy of workers and labor groups that we passed the law in 2023, and defended against attempts to weaken it this past session. With their support, we are ready to take that battle on again next year, and every year after that.”

Louris Marshall O’Brien, P.A., is the law firm representing the plaintiffs for the case. 

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Watch the Press Conference

Read the Complaint

UFCW Local 663 represents more than 14,000 hard-working essential retail, meat packing and processing, food preparation and manufacturing, healthcare, and other workers in Minnesota. We strive to improve the lives of our members and of all working families by fighting for economic, political, and social justice in our workplaces and communities. UFCW Local 663 is part of the 1.3 million-member United Food and Commercial Workers International Union.   

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