By Daniel Cox

Discrimination on the Farm

Ga. onion producer pays 750K in damages, 
admits violating rights of U.S. laborers

When Mary Alice Leach stopped by Bland Farms in May 2000 to inquire about a laborer job at the country’s largest producer of Vidalia sweet onions, she received a rude reception and was told to seek work at a neighboring farm 60 miles away. The 53-year old resident of Glenville, Ga., who walks with a slight limp as a result of reconstructive surgery on her ankle, may have seemed a likely target of discrimination. After all, she is black. She is disabled. And she is female. 

Yet in an ironic twist, it turns out that Leach was discriminated against for the one reason she would’ve never guessed: She is an American.

Leach is a member of a growing category of job-seekers denied employment in the agricultural industry: American citizens. Qualified U.S. workers are being passed over for farm laborer jobs in favor of foreign workers willing to work long hours under excruciating conditions for low pay. Under the federal government’s H-2A program, agricultural producers are permitted to temporarily hire nonimmigrant foreign workers when qualified American laborers are not available. However, many growers have shown a decided preference for foreign labor, improperly using the H-2A program to hire – and ultimately exploit – non-U.S. workers, says Bruce Goldstein, executive director of the Farmworker Justice Fund, a Washington D.C.-based nonprofit dedicated to improving working conditions for migrant and seasonal farmworkers. 

The practice of bringing in temporary guest workers dates back to the World War II era, when a labor shortage made the program essential to sustain struggling American farms. Today’s H-2A program, created under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, operates to ensure growers an adequate labor pool. It is utilized throughout the United States, with North Carolina and Georgia the country’s most prolific users. 

The H-2A program generally requires growers to enforce their own regulations governing wage rates, overtime and work schedules, but some farmers see little incentive in honoring their contracts with foreign laborers. Advocates say non-immigrant workers are cowed into silence out of fear they that they will lose their jobs (and their U.S. permanent residency status) if they complain about their wages or treatment. “Growers generally have not improved wages or working conditions in the agriculture industry and generally maintain very backward labor relations and practices,” Goldstein says.

After Leach was denied employment by Bland Farms, she contacted Dawson Morton, an attorney with the Farmworker Division of the Georgia Legal Services Program (GLSP). 

Morton instructed Leach to obtain the proper paperwork from the local employment office and return to the farm. Leach revisited Bland Farms and was grudgingly hired and allowed to work out the rest of the season. Leach was forced to work nine-hour days on her feet without any breaks. She received repeated reprimands from her employers for voicing displeasure with the difficult conditions. “They made it quite well known that if I wouldn’t work the long hours … that I couldn’t work,” Leach said. “It caused me a lot of problems with my leg, standing up for nine hours straight.”

Morton had seen such treatment before. In Georgia, laborers receive very few protections under state or federal law, he says. Agricultural producers are exempt from paying the state’s $3.25 minimum wage and from a Georgia statute requiring that workers be given at least one day off per week. While the federal H-2A statute sets hour limits for laborers, “growers often fail to inform workers that they are free to stop after they’ve completed the required hours,” Morton says. 

When the season ended, Leach was given her termination papers. But upon discovering that there was still work available at Bland Farms, she tried to reapply for her old position. Leach says she was called a quitter and an unreliable employee and told to seek employment elsewhere.

When Morton learned of this treatment, he sought an administrative hearing before the U.S. Department of Justice’s Executive Office of Immigration Review in Falls Church, Va. Morton laid out his case against the onion producer, demonstrating Bland Farm’s transparent discriminatory hiring practices. “Bland had tried to discourage Ms. Leach by making her travel an extremely long way to find a menial job,” Morton began. The farm claimed to advertise for positions by word of mouth, yet no farm employee could cite a specific example. And finally, Bland Farms placed advertisement in local newspapers, only to deny the advertised positions to qualified domestic applicants.

Morton told the presiding hearing officer, Robert L. Barton, Jr., that the farm’s problem with Leach wasn’t personal; it was policy. Morton had received other complaints from U.S. farmworkers whose employment overtures were rebuked by Bland Farms. He pointed out that Bland Farms employed as few as five U.S. workers out of a harvest workforce of 800 in the spring of 2000. Armed with ample anecdotal and statistical evidence, Morton overwhelmed Bland Farms during the discovery phase of the hearing. Bland Farms agreed to a settlement and an admission of intentional wrongdoing, paying the plaintiffs $75,000 in damages and “admit[ting] liability for intentional violations of the Complainants’ civil rights” Mary Alice Leach, et. al., v. Bland Farms is believed to be the first successful discrimination claim by a U.S. citizen against an H-2A employer for illegally preferring foreign workers, according to GLSP leaders.

Delbert Bland, owner of Bland Farms, was forced to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after the settlement, though his farm is still in the sweet onion business. He says he was merely doing what was necessary to keep his company profitable. “We did everything by the letter of the law that we were familiar with, that we should have done,” says Bland, who contends that most of the non-H2A applicants were not sincerely interested in employment on his farm. “The only reason they fill out an application is to say they’ve applied, because they really don’t want to work. They have to apply for a job to get [unemployment] benefits. If you get someone in here who doesn’t want to be, it’s a very bad situation for those of us trying to make a living.”

Morton points out that Bland’s hiring practices, while unlawful, are not unusual. “Growers have a lot to gain,” Morton says. “They have greater power over foreign workers because they are unfamiliar with U.S. laws.” Typically, he says, a grower provides H-2A workers with lodging, food and a temporary visa, all of which may be revoked upon termination of employment. Although the program has some built-in safeguards, advocates argue that these protections are regularly violated. Says Morton: “Guest workers commonly believe that if they complain about violations of their rights, they will be fired and not asked to return.”

Morton is not the most popular figure among Georgia agricultural producers. Growers filed five separate complaints against him with the State Bar of Georgia in the month of August alone; all were dismissed in September. Morton takes the backlash as evidence of a job well done. “Excessive bar complaints are the first sign that you have a meritorious claim,” he says. 

As for Leach, she is still grating onions at Bland Farms, though she now works normal hours. Her ankle, while stiff, is getting better. Now and again, her eyes well up, only it’s not because of the pain in her foot. She’s holding the grater a little too close to her nose. Even the sweetest onions can sometimes cause tears.