Migrant Workers Bring Cannery Employment Row Against Owner in Federal Court
Sixty-five legal migrant workers from Mexico have filed a putative class action against GLK Foods, LLC in a federal court in Wisconsin, seeking to recover wages and damages for breach of contract, including the cost of transportation if the workers were terminated before the end of their certified period of employment. Jiminez v. GLK Foods LLC, No. 12-209 (E.D. Wis., filed February 29, 2012). The action was brought under the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act, Fair Labor Standards Act, Wisconsin Migrant Labor Act, and Wisconsin Wage Payments, Claims and Collections Act.
The workers were allegedly recruited from Mexico and employed in the
United States in the defendant’s sauerkraut cannery under the H-2B temporary
foreign worker visa program over a period of five years beginning in 2006.
They claim that employers seeking to hire H-2B workers, where sufficient
domestic workers are unavailable to perform the job, must file an application
for temporary employment certification that specifies wages and other terms
and conditions of employment offered to the workers. These applications
and certifications allegedly included an affirmation by a GLK agent that the
company would pay at least minimum wage, provide at least 40 hours of
work per week for each worker, provide work for the entire certified period,
comply with all applicable employment-related laws, and pay for return
transportation from the job sites to the workers’ home if they were terminated
prematurely.
The complaint outlines the expenses the workers incurred to work in the
United States, including costs for securing passports, paying recruitment
fees and traveling to the job sites. They allege that these costs were never
reimbursed and thus, they were paid less than the prevailing wage rate for
their first weeks of work. In 2010 and 2011, the defendant allegedly fired the workers “well short of the certified employment end date.” The plaintiffs also allege that the defendant failed to (i) provide their return transportation expenses, (ii) pay for all hours worked, (iii) pay for overtime, and (iv) employ the plaintiffs and class members for 40 hour per week during the entire certified period.
Alleging violations of state and federal law, as well as breach of contract, the
plaintiffs ask the court to permit the action to proceed as a collective action; certify the case as a class action; declare that the defendant violated the law; and award them actual, statutory or consequential damages, costs, and attorney’s fees.
