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HSPRD files suit on behalf of Mexican H-2A guest workers against Tennessee tomato farm alleging abusive working conditions, discrimination, and retaliation.

Southern Migrant Legal Services and Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym today filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of fifteen Mexican guestworkers against Fish Farms, a Newport, Tennessee tomato farm, alleging violations of federal and state civil rights and labor laws.

Fish Farms brought the workers to Tennessee last year through the federal government’s guestworker program. The workers allege that once they arrived, Fish Farms subjected them to inhumane working conditions, including repeatedly exposing them to pesticides. The workers claim that after they complained about these abuses to state and federal authorities, Fish Farms brutally retaliated against them and fired them.

“Labor laws mean nothing if employers can intimidate workers into accepting deplorable working conditions,” said Mel Fowler-Green of Southern Migrant Legal Services. “These workers had the courage to speak out about their treatment, and we believe Fish Farms broke the law when it tried to silence them.”

The lawsuit maintains that Fish Farms housed workers in overcrowded and squalid trailers, failed to provide them with potable water, and required the workers to wash their clothes in a nearby river. The workers allege that Fish Farms sprayed pesticides in close proximity to their living quarters and in the fields while they were working. After the workers complained to the Tennessee Department of Agriculture and the United Stated Department of Labor (USDOL) about these conditions, Fish Farms attempted to impede USDOL’s investigation. A farm manager falsely accused one worker of aggravated assault and had him arrested in front of the other workers. During this incident, other Fish Farms’ supervisors also surrounded the workers’ housing brandishing firearms. The charges against the worker were later dropped.

Two weeks later, the workers attempted to record their pesticide exposure on cell phone videocameras. Fish Farms managers responded by raiding the workers’ housing, yelling racial slurs, kicking in the door of one home, and wrenching cell phones from some workers’ hands. Fish Farms then fired the workers en masse, detained them for many hours on a bus, and carried out what was, in effect, a private deportation by taking the workers to a bus station and insisting they return to Mexico.

The suit echoes the retaliation and discrimination claims brought by Mexican guestworkers in Middle Tennessee against Vanderbilt Landscaping, LLC last month. Unfortunately it is all too common for employers to take advantage of workers who participate in the U.S. guestworker programs. “These men followed the law in coming to this country, and in return for playing by the rules, Fish Farms abused them because they were Mexican and fired them because they complained about their treatment. That kind of conduct is contrary to the laws and values of our nation,” said Matthew J. Piers of Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym.

Fish Farms brought the workers to the United States using the H-2A guestworker visa program, which allows employers to hire foreign workers if sufficient domestic labor cannot be found. Among other things, the program requires employers to provide adequate wages and safe and sanitary housing.

Explains Fowler-Green, “Everyone is hurt when growers abuse the guestworker program like this. Not only do the guestworkers suffer, but U.S. workers are cut out of the labor market, and the growers gain an unfair advantage over their competitors. This is especially troubling when unemployment in Tennessee is nearing 10%.”

Southern Migrant Legal Services is a project of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, Inc. (TRLA) that provides free legal services to migrant and seasonal farmworkers in Arkansas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana. Established in 1970, TRLA is a nonprofit organization that provides free legal services to low-income and disadvantaged clients in a 68-county service area in Texas. For more information on TRLA and this story visit www.trla.org.
 

Hughes Socol Piers Resnick & Dym Ltd. is a Chicago-based law firm with one of the nation’s leading civil and employment rights practices. Founded in 1985, the firm maintains a full-service, diverse practice and has developed an expertise in protecting the rights of Mexican immigrants and immigrant communities through complex litigation. For more information about the firm, visit www.hsplegal.com.

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