YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC September 12, 2007
Global Horizons ag-labor case goes to trial
Trial began Tuesday in a complex federal farm-workers' rights case that's already outlasted two judges and raised questions about the relevance of the legal status of the more than 200 farm-worker plaintiffs. The case was filed in 2005 by three local Hispanic workers who allege they were denied employment in 2004 at two Lower Valley farms because the growers and their farm-labor contractor intentionally displaced them with more malleable foreign workers from Thailand. "The Thai workers were isolated, they washed their clothes in trash cans and cooked on the floor," Rich Kuhling, one of the lawyers for the workers, said in his opening statement. Kuhling and Columbia Legal Services, lead counsel for the plaintiffs, will attempt to show that the contractor, Global Horizons of Los Angeles, and the growers engaged in an "elimination process" to fire local Hispanic workers and replace them with the Thais. Under the federal H-2A program, growers are allowed to import foreign farm workers if they can demonstrate a shortage of local workers. Kuhling said recruiters in Thailand were able to command fees of $8,000 to $11,000 from each Thai worker just to get a job in the United States. He said the recruiters ran the workers through a battery of humiliating tasks before deeming them fit for picking cherries and apples. "They poked them, made them jump and do push-ups," he said. Global's lawyer, Chrystal Bobbitt, called Kuhling's statements inflammatory but reserved her opening statement until later in the case. She is also attempting to impeach the testimony of a witness, a former Global employee, who testified that the company's owner, Mordechai Orian, knowingly moved Thai workers around without U.S. Department of Labor approval. Ryan Edgley, who is representing Green Acre Farms and Valley Fruit, has not yet presented his opening statement. The case has been divided into two phases with Global facing a jury trial and the growers being tried before the judge. U.S. District Court Judge Robert Whaley inherited the case five weeks ago. The original judge, U.S. Magistrate Judge Michael Leavitt -- who elevated the case by granting class-action status -- died in June of complications from lymphoma. Senior U.S. District Judge Alan McDonald followed Leavitt and issued a controversial partial summary judgment for the workers in July. But McDonald died in August after battling a series of health problems. "I've had it five weeks and it's a complicated case. All the knowledge these gentlemen had went out the window," he said of Leavitt and McDonald. Still unclear is whether the individual plaintiffs' legal status will be allowed into the trial. Bobbitt argues it is relevant; Columbia Legal Services argues it is not. The class has been estimated at between 200 and 600 workers.
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