Farmer Who Underpaid U.S. Workers Fined

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.theledger.com/article/20070710/NEWS/707100305/1001/BUSINESS

Published Tuesday, July 10, 2007
Farmer Who Underpaid U.S. Workers Fined

By Kevin Bouffard
The Ledger

LAKE WALES
Kenneth Hyatt of Hyatt Farms in Lake Wales has paid $200,400 in back wages and fines for failing to pay his U.S. workers as much as he had foreign laborers for the same duties. An administrative law judge with the U.S. Department of Labor in Tampa ruled against Hyatt after an investigation of the citrus and vegetable farm's employment practices from 2001 to 2003, according to a department press statement released Monday. Hyatt paid the fine last month and agreed not to contest the judge's March 28 ruling, said Michael Wald, a Labor Department spokesman at its Atlanta regional headquarters.

Department investigators found Hyatt had failed to provide the same benefits to 307 U.S. workers that he provided to foreign workers hired under a federal seasonal, temporary worker program known as "H-2A," the statement said.

The judge ruled Hyatt Farms failed to provide its U.S. workers with a copy of the contract and wage rates paid to the foreign workers, as the program requires, the statement said. Hyatt also gave preferential treatment to the foreign workers and failed to pay the U.S. workers as much as their foreign counterparts.

The judge ordered Hyatt to pay the 307 workers $163,788 in back pay plus a $36,620 penalty, the statement said.

The H-2A program sets the minimum wage rates for the foreign workers and requires U.S. workers be paid at least as much, Wald said.


FULL story at link.

[wakeme2008]

1. this does not make sense to me

Why not hire all US at the lower rate. :shrug:

[lligrd]

3. Social Security Taxes? nt

[lligrd]

2. So We Are The Cheaper Labor, Now?

Way to go, Repugs.