A migrant farmworker is suing one of Manatee County's biggest farmers for underpaying him
and hundreds of other farmworkers and forcing them to live in housing without water or electricity.
Wilio Morales-Meza, a Hillsborough County resident who worked in the farm's Manatee
and Hillsborough County fields, is also asking for class action status, allowing his suit
to cover hundreds of other farmworkers.
Morales-Meza claims that Falkner Farms and Thomas Falkner, a managing partner,
repeatedly refused to pay workers minimum wage for working the fields
when they weren't harvesting cucumbers.
Morales-Meza said he picked cucumbers at the Myakka City farm for three years.
He also maintained the fields -- weeding them and hoeing rows.
Greg Schell, an attorney with the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project who filed
the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Tampa on Tuesday, said Falkner Farms owes
workers between $500,000 and $1 million in unpaid wages from the last two seasons.
"There's whole days they work and don't get paid at all," Schell said.
The farm's payroll records show only hours for picking cucumbers, so it appears that the farmer
is at least paying workers the minimum wage, Schell said.
But if a worker picks for seven hours and then works three more hours
doing other labor, the pay is only for the picking.
"They keep it off the books," Schell said. "They've done this for years."
Schell said Falkner's practices are common among farmers.
He said farmworkers are "chronically" underpaid.
Schell said he first learned about the farm's conditions when Morales-Meza
sought help on a worker's compensation claim.
Morales-Meza said he was riding in the back of a truck when he fell off and broke his collarbone.
He got no medical treatment and suffered in pain for three months.
"No one would pay for him to go to the doctor," Schell said.
The farm paid for treatment after Schell became involved, he said.
Thomas Falkner, who is named in the suit, did not return several phone calls Tuesday.
Falkner Farms has operations in Florida and Michigan, including about 20,000 acres in Manatee County.
Falkner cucumbers end up in the jars of major pickle makers such as Vlasic and Claussen,
and on patties at major fast food restaurants, netting the farm millions in profits.
Morales-Meza, 29, a husband and father of four from Chiapas, Mexico,
said living conditions in Falkner's camps were deplorable and that he was even f
orced to live out of a truck at one point.
"When I lived in the trailers we didn't have water," Morales-Meza said in Spanish.
"We'd go to another trailer or a friend's trailer to bathe."
The farm has camps in Hillsborough County and one in Myakka City off State Road 64.
The Myakka City camp is a cluster of older single-wide trailers that house farmworkers and their families.
Mattresses crowd living rooms and workers have said that many of the trailers
don't have heat or air conditioning.
A May 2003 inspection report from the Hillsborough County Health Department cited
Falkner Farms for numerous violations such as an inadequate hot water supply,
poor plumbing and electrical wiring at its Wimauma camp.
According to the May 14 report, several of the trailers housed too many people and
too many beds in one room, including kitchens.
One trailer housed 11 people when only six should be there, the report showed.
A follow-up report indicates that Falkner Farms corrected the violations.
Esperanza Gamboa, a farmworker advocate and coordinator for the Farmworker Education Program
at Manatee Technical Institute, said she didn't know about the lawsuit. She declined to comment on it.
Gamboa said Falkner Farms has helped raise money for the program's emergency fund,
which helps with food, shelter and scholarships.
"They've always been a good supporter of our programs," Gamboa said. "We don't have complaints.
Not many farmers support our organization ... they do."
Schell said the judge must next decide whether to approve class action status in the case.
If that isn't approved, Morales-Meza will be the only plaintiff.
Morales-Meza, who is now jobless, said he isn't sure if he considers himself courageous for filing the lawsuit.
"I think I am doing the right thing," he said.
Last modified: November 19. 2003 6:22AM