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Guest workers sue employer, say rights violated
Business owner says he is the victim
A group of temporary immigrant workers says their Warren County boss
cheated them on wages and fired them when they complained.
They filed suit April 3 in Winchester, Tenn., saying Allison Tree
Digging Service contracted them through the U.S. Department of Labor's
H-2A guest worker program, agreeing to
pay them the program's 2007 minimum
wage of $8.75 per hour and meet other program requirements.
Daniel Gaona-Gaona, Armando Martinez-Rodriguez, Enrique Torres-Escobedo,
Jesus Zarate-Navarro, Francisco Gaona-Sanchez and Sergio
Martinez-Rodriguez are seeking unspecified damages, back pay and
interest. All six men are from Mexico. Their whereabouts are unknown.
Business owner Michael Allison
denied Wednesday paying the workers less than the mandatory minimum,
denied the workers were fired and said he hadn't received a copy of the
suit.
"They sure cashed them checks week after week after week, so they must
have felt like they was paid what they were supposed to be," Allison
said. "I think they just got mad, walked off and wanted to get me in
trouble."
The six men say they were paid $6.75 an hour and were not reimbursed for
the cost of travel in the time required by federal law. After the third
time they complained to Allison, he fired them without paying them what
was due under their H-2A contract, according to the suit.
Allison said the men have not retrieved checks for their hours worked.
The H-2A program allows agricultural employers to bring temporary
foreign workers to the U.S. The program requires employers to advertise,
give U.S.-born workers preference, pay foreign-born workers an annually
adjusted U.S. Department of Labor determined minimum wage, cover the
cost of the foreign worker's transportation to and from the city where
the job is located and provide housing.
Once a worker begins, employers also are obligated to pay him up to 75
percent of what he would have earned regardless of circumstances — bad
weather, a slowdown in demand or something else — unless the worker
quits.
Workers, in turn, are obligated to leave the country as soon as they
cease working for the employer.
The rules are designed to prevent worker abuses and a reduction in
domestic workers' wages, said Melody Fowler-Green, a staff attorney with
Southern Migrant Legal Services, the agency representing the six men
suing Allison.
"We have talked to hundreds of H-2A workers at dozens of employers in
the area, and virtually every one of them has complaints," Fowler-Green
wrote in an e-mail. "Many of the complaints are similar to the ones
alleged in this case. However, 95 percent of the workers we talk to are
too afraid to complain."
Agency aids workers
Southern Migrant Legal Services is the Tennessee branch of a Texas-based
organization, Rio Grande Legal Aid. The Tennessee agency defends the
employment rights of migrant and legal temporary foreign workers in six
states. It has seven suits on behalf of 94 specific workers and others
pending and has closed three cases this year.
The U.S. Department of Labor is considering a series of changes to the
H-2A program to respond to the needs of the nation's $276 billion
agriculture industry, according to 2006 figures.
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