10/08/2020
SPLC Files Class Action Lawsuit Targeting Arkansas Farm Labor Contractor Exploiting Migrant Workers | Southern Poverty Law C…
SPLC FILES CLASS ACTION LAWSUIT TARGETING ARKANSAS FARM
LABOR CONTRACTOR EXPLOITING MIGRANT WORKERS
August 06, 2020
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El Dorado, Ark. – Today, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) filed a
class action lawsuit on behalf of migrant workers who have faced
rampant wage theft by a major farm labor contractor, Lowry Farms, Inc.
The guest workers planted sugarcane on farms throughout Louisiana
for little pay after leaving their homes and families and spending
considerable amounts of money to work for Lowry Farms.
In addition to two named plaintiffs, Antonio-Benito v. Lowry Farms, Inc.
was brought on behalf of around 2,000 Mexican migrant workers who
planted sugarcane at farms in Louisiana.
The lawsuit, filed in U.S. District Court in the Western District of
Arkansas, outlines Lowry Farms’ ongoing failure to comply with federal
and state laws that led to the workers earning less than the minimum
wage due to improper reimbursement for visa and transportation costs,
the underreporting of hours worked, and shifting required business
expenses onto the workers.
“Lowry Farms is using the guest worker program to exploit workers by
grossly underpaying them and forcing them to work under unacceptable
and unfair conditions,” said SPLC's Immigrant Justice Project Senior
Supervising Attorney Anne Janet Hernandez Anderson, who is
representing the workers. “This systematic failure to protect guest
workers from the abuse the program enables and ignores must end.”
https://www.splcenter.org/presscenter/splc-files-class-action-lawsuit-targeting-arkansas-farm-labor-contractor-exploiting
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