Backed by a recent US Supreme Court ruling, workers at a Tyson Foods Inc. facility have alleged that the world's largest chicken, beef and pork processor violated federal and state labour laws.

262 current and former workers at the Tyson Fresh Meats, Inc. facility in Holcomb, Kansas, have joined the lawsuit, alleging that they did not receive wages and overtime pay as required by the federal Fair Labour Standards Act and Kansas state law.

The vast majority of workers at the facility are immigrants, many of them from Latin America.

The lawsuit comes after an earlier Supreme Court decision in the case of "IBP Inc. versus Alvarez" that meat plant workers had to be paid for the time required to put on and remove protective clothing and safety gear and for the time required to walk to and from work stations. Tyson acquired Iowa Beef Processors (IBP) in 2001 and continued IBP's unlawful wage and hour policies and practices at the Holcomb facility, according to the law firms.