Minnesota petitions court to have HyLife return $41K to laid off Windom workers

State investigators say 310 workers laid off from a southwestern Minnesota pork slaughterhouse that closed in June are owed more than $41,000 in back pay and unpaid overtime.

The Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry (DLI) on Friday filed a motion in federal bankruptcy court in Delaware seeking payment from HyLife Foods, the former owner of a sprawling meat-processing facility in Windom, Minn.

Former workers were unfairly and illegally denied full pay for their work between late April, when the company filed for bankruptcy, and early June, when the plant finally shuttered, the state regulator said.

DLI Commissioner Nicole Blissenbach wrote a letter to HyLife Foods CEO Grant Lazaruk on Oct. 6, asserting that a "significant amount of back wages were owed to hundreds of employees."

The Minnesota motion is asking the federal judge overseeing HyLife's bankruptcy proceeding to demand the Manitoba-based company pay a total of $41,752.98.

According to a state-compiled list filed in court records, some employees — whose identifying information in the document was blackened out — were owed as little as $6, others as much as $1,900.

A HyLife spokeswoman could not be reached by deadline.

In late April, HyLife Foods announced the closure of the Windom plant, which had been processing approximately 5,000 hogs daily. Nearly half of the plant's 1,000-person workforce comprised workers on temporary, agricultural work visas, many from Mexico. At the time, the company insisted many of the H-2A workers would be returned to their home countries.

This summer, HyLife sold the Windom plant to Premium Iowa Pork in a court-approved auction. Plans to reopen the plant have not been announced.