"Florida Farmworkers Sue Dairy Owned by Family of Sen. Graham Over Wages"

Posted Sun, Feb 1, 2004 at 10:11 am

From this:

A dairy farm owned by the family of U.S. Sen. Bob Graham [D - FL] is being sued by farmworkers who claim they are not being paid minimum wage.
Attorney Greg Schell, who represents the workers, said the alleged violations of federal law occurred over the past four years and involved as many as 200 workers employed by Graham Farms in Glades County. Graham Farms is a division of The Graham Cos., and the senator is a director of that firm...

Schell said the workers allege they are being paid $4 an hour when minimum wage in Florida is $5.15 an hour. He said the company adds "some kind of bonus which they say brings the gross pay over the minimum wage."

"But they keep no records so there is no way to prove that is true and the workers say they are owed money."

Failure to keep wage records also is illegal. Schell said the total owed the workers could amount to two hours pay per day for the time each was employed by the farm.

"It could come to hundreds of thousands of dollars," said Schell, of the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project, a farmworker advocacy group.

It's suits like this that will make alleged serf-masters like former Democratic presidential candidate Bob Graham think, "Why didn't I just hire legal immigrants or citizens and pay them a fair wage in the first place? I would have saved money, aggravation, and the possibility of a prison sentence."

Lawyers could play a big part in reforming our immigration system. Some companies that only employ legal immigrants and citizens have sued those that hire illegal aliens for unfair competition.

Other possibilites for class actions - this a bit far-fetched - are to sue companies who do things like Graham's company are alleged to have done for not paying their fair share of the social costs associated with their "cheap" labor.

It's just wishful thinking on my part, but I wonder if Nanci Pelosi has a few problems along these lines. She owns two small vineyards in Napa. No doubt it wouldn't be too difficult to go there and interview people who've worked on Nanci's farm.

(Via the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler)

Comments

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