Source: The New York Times

On June 26, 2001, The New York Times reported that "16 United States senators are at loggerheads with 18 bishops from various denominations...The senators...have urged the department to drop [an] enforcement effort, in which inspectors found wage violations at...51 poultry plants [and told the plants to pay $350 million in back wages]...But the religious leaders want the Labor Department to press ahead, saying the poultry workers need the government's protection."