Fla. Field-Workers File Class Action Claiming Wage Violations
In an unusual move that has caught the attention of local South Florida residents, several field-workers have filed a federal lawsuit contending that the owner of the farm at which they have been harvesting beans for years has underpaid them and hundreds of other laborers.
The basis of their suit, which they are seeking to pursue as a class action, is a little-known law of which many such workers are unaware. It requires growers to pay them at least the minimum wage. But workers are routinely paid on a piece-rate basis (for beans, roughly $3.50 per box), which encourages greater productivity, reports the Miami Herald.
That is legal—so long as the workers are paid at the end of the week for any shortage between the total they would have earned for the same hours at the minimum wage of $6.67, and what they actually were paid, the newspaper explains. In practice, however, this may not happen—and didn’t happen in their case, the plaintiffs allege, among other causes of action they are pursuing under the federal Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Protection Act.
”It’s cheaper for these growers to violate the law and hope they don’t get caught,” says attorney Greg Schell. He works for the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project, which represents the plaintiffs.
Although such workers typically are actually hired and paid by third-party contractors, a 1996 11th U.S. Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling found that farm owners are nonetheless responsible for complying with applicable labor laws, the newspaper notes.
Defendant John Torrese, who owns the Homestead, Fla., farm at which the alleged violations occurred, tells the Herald that he is stunned by the suit. ”This is the first I hear of it,” he says. “There hasn’t been one person that’s come to my front desk to say they weren’t paid. If there was a problem, no one came to me to try and straighten it out.”
