Farmworkers Bring Federal Lawsuit Against Agribusiness, Demanding Unpaid Wages
Legal Services E-lert
Bibliographic Info:
Author: Jazmine Ulloa
Source: The Brownsville Herald, “Seasonal Workers Sue Agricultural Giant”
Date: July 31, 2010
The Brownville Herald reports: “[Raul] Salas, 69, is…one of 20 migrant workers who this month filed a federal lawsuit against…[Pioneer Hi-Bred International Inc.], which they said failed to pay them minimum wage, took illegal deductions from their wages and forced them to live in rundown, overcrowded hotel rooms. [LSC funded] Texas RioGrande Legal Aid and Indiana Legal Services are representing the plaintiffs, who are asking for an unspecified amount of unpaid minimum wages; an equal amount in liquidated damages; and an unspecified amount in ‘actual, incidental and consequential damages resulting from the defendants’ breach of contract.’. . . . For Salas, like for most migrant workers, the job was an economic necessity, he said. He and other workers, he said, traveled across the country to work for the agricultural company, but after a little more than two weeks of arduous labor, they were sent home at their own expense, even though he said they had been told the jobs would last at least a month. Workers were promised between $2,000 and $5,000 for the work, plus bonuses, according to the lawsuit. But Salas said the company only gave them about $50 a week to eat. His last check was for $200, and that was all he had left, Salas said — he never saw the bonuses. ‘The [labor] contractor would get mad if we reproached him,’ Salas said. ‘We could not reproach him about anything. We could not do anything about it.’ In the cornfields, workers said, conditions were poor. Workers had ‘dirty and inaccessible Port-o-Potties and warm and inaccessible drinking water,’ the lawsuit charges. Some workers were exposed to pesticides when a crop-duster sprayed a field while they detasseled corn, according to the lawsuit. . . . Texas RioGrande Legal Aid has received complaints from workers regarding Pioneer’s employment practices almost on a yearly basis, according to a statement from the legal services agency. The lawsuit is the fourth large federal case the agency has brought against Pioneer on behalf of farmworkers in the last five years. This case is a familiar one for attorneys at Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, said Marinda van Dalen, one of those lawyers. Pioneer and other major agricultural companies rely heavily on South Texas workers and often employ fly-by-night contractors to round up a lot of workers for a short period of time, she said.
The practice allows for contractors to remain unaccountable and often results in lawsuits, van Dalen said. But the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act and the Fair Labor Standards Act both limit the amount of penalties that can be collected from a corporation as a result of the litigation. Agricultural companies thus ‘see this type of litigation as a cost of doing business,’ van Dalen said. ‘And the potential exposure they receive from this type of lawsuit is just not large enough to change their practices.’ Pioneer has annual revenue of more than $1 billion, and it is owned by an even larger corporation, DuPont. Van Dalen said that real change in labor practices will not come as a result of lawsuits but from agricultural employers themselves…”