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price fixing
JBS Doesn’t Deserve a Place in Our Markets or on Our Plates
Even in industrial meat production, an industry known for its corruption and poor conditions, JBS stands out for the scope and severity of its violations.
Aug 20, 2025
Earlier this summer, JBS, the world’s largest meatpacking corporation, was approved to list on the New York Stock Exchange. The move was celebrated in business media as a milestone of corporate growth and a testament to the leadership of JBS’ 33-year-old CEO of their US division Wesley Batista Filho. But behind the headlines lies a far more troubling story, one of exploitation, impunity, and environmental devastation that should not be ignored.
Turning a blind eye to abuses at a company as large and powerful as JBS is dangerous, with the harms extending far beyond the meatpacking industry. Consumers, advocates, and investors must stop normalizing this behavior. We have the power and the responsibility to demand better.
JBS has built its empire not through innovation or sustainability, but through exploitation. Price fixing, child labor, wage theft, bribery, tax avoidance, deforestation, animal cruelty—these are not isolated scandals. They are core ingredients of JBS’ business model. And while many corporations would work to correct and address their abuses, JBS has repeatedly treated legal penalties and reputational damage as just another cost of doing business.
Even in industrial meat production, an industry known for its corruption and poor conditions, JBS stands out for the scope and severity of its violations. The company recently agreed to pay over $80 million to settle a beef price-fixing lawsuit. Earlier this year, the company was cited for illegally employing migrant children, some as young as 13, on overnight cleaning shifts in its slaughterhouses. Meanwhile, workers across its global operations report being injured, silenced, or discarded when they speak up.
We must stop sending the message that corporations can endanger workers, break the law, and destroy the environment without consequence, as long as they remain profitable.
A recent federal lawsuit filed by Salima Jandali, a former safety trainer at JBS’ Greeley, Colorado plant, alleges that she faced racial and religious harassment, was retaliated against for raising safety concerns, and was pressured to falsify injury reports. Her allegations closely mirror a separate class action lawsuit filed by Black workers at another JBS facility in Pennsylvania who describe enduring racist slurs, being passed over for promotions, and working in unsafe conditions.
Beyond the factory floor, JBS has long been linked to illegal deforestation and environmental destruction in the Amazon, both directly through its supply chains and indirectly through pressure on local ecosystems. The company’s climate footprint is staggering, with greenhouse gas emissions that rival those of entire countries. And yet, instead of reckoning with this impact, JBS continues to expand production and avoid accountability.
In Brazil, where the company is headquartered, the recent passage of most of the so-called “devastation bill” further weakens environmental safeguards and accelerates the damage. Now that President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva approved the bill, even with some environmental restrictions, it continues to grant free rein to agribusiness giants like JBS that profit from the destruction of forests and the displacement of Indigenous communities.
This is not a case of a few bad actors or isolated scandals. JBS has thrived because of weak enforcement, political influence, and a financial system that rewards short-term gains over long-term responsibility.
Just months before its New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) debut, JBS subsidiary Pilgrim’s Pride made a $5 million donation to the Trump-Vance Inaugural Committee. This is the context in which JBS was allowed to access US capital markets. Even though top proxy advisory firms, including Glass Lewis and Institutional Shareholder Services, urged shareholders to vote against the listing, citing serious governance concerns and lack of transparency, their warnings were ignored, and just this June, JBS began trading on the NYSE.
JBS now generates over $39 billion a year from its US operations alone, profits that are often routed through tax havens in Luxembourg, Malta, and the Netherlands. And when caught breaking the law, JBS often faces only minor consequences that rarely match the scale of the harm.
We must stop sending the message that corporations can endanger workers, break the law, and destroy the environment without consequence, as long as they remain profitable. There is another path forward. Consumers, advocates, and investors need to reject this status quo and demand change.
That starts with consumers actively choosing not to buy JBS products. Investors can divest from JBS and urge their asset managers to do the same. Universities, pension funds, and retirement plans can reexamine whether their portfolios are supporting a company with this kind of track record. At the same time, policymakers must push for stronger corporate accountability, not just in meatpacking, but across industries that harm people and the planet.
JBS should not be rewarded with more money, more access, and more influence. Instead, we must make JBS the example and let it serve as a warning about the costs of putting profit above all else. The future of our food system, our environment, and our communities depends on drawing the line and holding it.
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Casar-Tlaib Bill Would Ban Corporations From Using AI to Set Prices, Wages
"The idea that employers would leverage surveillance data to exploit a worker in a desperate position and offer them a lower wage is appalling," said Rep. Rashida Tlaib.
Jul 23, 2025
A pair of U.S. House progressives have introduced a bill that would stop companies from using artificial intelligence to set prices and wages based on the personal information of customers and workers.
The "Stop AI Price Gouging and Wage Fixing Act," introduced Wednesday by Reps. Greg Casar (D-Texas) and Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), is an effort to curb the growing trend of "surveillance-based price setting," where companies use data from customers to determine how much they are willing to pay for a service.
According to a recent report by the Federal Trade Commission, "Retailers frequently use people's personal information to set targeted, tailored prices for goods and services—from a person's location and demographics, down to their mouse movements on a webpage."
Casar said that "giant corporations should not be allowed to jack up your prices or lower your wages using data they got spying on you."
"Whether you know it or not, you may already be getting ripped off by corporations using your personal data to charge you more," he added. "This problem is only going to get worse, and Congress should act before this becomes a full-blown crisis."
Earlier this month, Delta Airlines announced a pilot program using an AI model to charge individual consumers the maximum amount it determines they are willing to pay for plane tickets. Delta has described the change as "a full reengineering of how we price, and how we will be pricing in the future."
Other companies have been accused of using similar forms of "surge pricing."
Uber, which has been suspected of jacking up prices on riders with low cellphone batteries, pioneered the method. Kroger and Walmart have used digital price tags on goods to rapidly change prices, and Kroger also says it is using facial recognition to track customers in order to offer targeted coupons.
Amazon has been accused of setting personalized prices based on customers' location and browsing history, and the Princeton Review has even been caught charging greater amounts for SAT prep services in Asian communities.
Companies also frequently use hidden algorithms based on personal data to pay workers different wages for the same work—an especially pervasive practice in gig economy jobs like rideshare and delivery driving.
A 2024 report by the Roosevelt Institute found that these algorithms were also being applied to nurses, who were offered shifts by an opaque algorithm based on who was willing to work for the lowest pay and a number of other undisclosed factors.
"It is shameful that companies would use our neighbors' sensitive personal information against them to raise prices," said Tlaib. "The idea that employers would leverage surveillance data to exploit a worker in a desperate position and offer them a lower wage is appalling."
The bill still allows companies to change prices for individuals based on certain circumstances. For example, they would still be allowed to offer discounts to certain groups like college students, veterans, and senior citizens or enact loyalty programs.
Likewise, wage-earners would still be allowed to receive overtime pay or bonuses for good work or have their salaries changed to accommodate the cost of living.
The bill instead targets companies that use underhanded and invasive tactics to take advantage of their customers' and employees' desperation.
"This bill draws a clear line in the sand: Companies can offer discounts and fair wages—but not by spying on people," said the consumer advocacy group Public Citizen. "Surveillance-based price gouging and wage setting are exploitative practices that deepen inequality and strip consumers and workers of dignity."
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Lina Khan Slams Trump FTC for Giving Oil Executives a Free Pass After Price-Fixing Scandal
Khan accused the administration of "letting off the hook oil executives caught trying to collude with foreign countries to inflate how much people pay at the pump."
Jul 18, 2025
A ban imposed last year by top antitrust enforcer Lina Khan under the Biden administration had stopped two fossil fuel CEOs accused of colluding on oil prices from serving on powerful corporate boards, with the Federal Trade Commission saying at the time that the order would "help ensure American consumers benefit from lower prices at the pump."
But the Trump administration on Thursday signaled no interest in ensuring oil companies won't engage in price-fixing and collusion to boost profits at the expense of working families as the FTC overturned the order that prevented former Pioneer Natural Resources CEO Scott Sheffield and Hess CEO John Hess from serving on the boards of ExxonMobil and Chevron, respectively.
Exxon bought Pioneer for $59.5 billion last year, while Chevron's purchase of Hess was announced Friday after months of arbitration proceedings.
The FTC, now led by pro-corporate Republican Andrew Ferguson, said the commission's complaints about Sheffield's and Hess's communications with the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) did not "plead any antitrust law violation" or show that the acquisitions of the smaller companies and the CEO's positions on the boards "would be anticompetitive."
The decision, said Elyse Schupak, a policy advocate with Public Citizen's Climate Program, "undermines accountability for the CEOs accused of illegally colluding with OPEC to increase profits by driving up energy prices for American families and businesses."
Khan's investigation last year found the Sheffield had communicated with OPEC about slashing oil production and driving up consumer prices while claiming Biden administration policies were to blame, prompting U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (D-Wis.) to say "jail time should seriously be considered" for the CEO.
"The FTC needs to be doing more to fully rout out Big Oil's anticompetitive behavior. But Ferguson has moved the FTC in the complete opposite direction."
The FTC also found that Hess "stressed the importance of oil market stability and inventory management and encouraged [OPEC] officials to take actions on these issues and speak about them at different events."
One analysis by Matt Stoller of the American Economic Liberties Project found that price-fixing schemes by corporations—not inflation—were to blame for 27% of the higher prices American families faced in 2021.
Khan on Thursday accused President Donald Trump's FTC of "letting off the hook oil executives caught trying to collude with foreign countries to inflate how much people pay at the pump."
The commission's three Republican members voted to allow Sheffield and Hess to serve on the boards—even as one of them, Commissioner Mark Meador, said that OPEC operates "as a de facto cartel" and warned the FTC "should not hesitate to bring enforcement actions against actual collusion."
Ferguson, meanwhile, claimed that banning Sheffield and Hess from the company boards "would damage the FTC's credibility and undermine its mission"—a statement that was denounced by the government watchdog Revolving Door Project.
"Banning a C-suite executive who tried to inflate oil prices isn't the move that 'damages' the FTC's credibility. It's Andrew Ferguson's willingness to absolve such actions that undermines the agency's mission to promote competition," said the group.
"The FTC needs to be doing more to fully rout out Big Oil's anticompetitive behavior," added Revolving Door Project. "But Ferguson has moved the FTC in the complete opposite direction—signaling to corporate America that they won't be held accountable for fleecing the public."
Schupak said that "while the Trump administration feigns interest in bringing energy prices down, its policies—fast-tracking export projects, rolling back regulatory safeguards, and halting enforcement actions for corporate wrongdoing—reveal the administration is far more interested in boosting the profitability of the oil and gas industry than providing Americans any relief or safeguarding them against corruption."
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