Source:   Tom Johnston, MEATINGPLACE.COM, 6/3/11

Current and former workers at Oscar Mayer’s Madison, Wis., plant will split a $4.2 million settlement with the company after a federal judge ruled they’re entitled to pay for the time it takes to put on and take off protective gear before and after production work, according to court papers.

U.S. District Judge Barbara Crabb, of the Western District of Wisconsin, approved the payment Wednesday to 1,740 workers employed at the plant between 2005 and 2010. Individual amounts ranging from $1 to almost $9,000 will be doled out based on hours worked during that period, overtime and rate of pay, according to plaintiffs' attorney Jim Olson in a report in the Wisconsin State Journal.

Olson said the workers also will receive donning-and-doffing pay in the future.

Joe Jerzewski, president and business manager of the local UFCW chapter, is quoted in the paper as saying that the result is “a game changer throughout the whole industry.”

Courts have ruled both ways in an ongoing legal debate about whether pre- and post-work duties are compensable.

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