Lawsuit: West Michigan blueberry farm treated migrant workers unfairly

A pair of migrant workers have sued a west Michigan farm in federal court for alleged labor trafficking violations, including being forced to work long hours without breaks, accept unfair wages and share a three-bedroom house between 30 workers, under threat of legal repercussions if they complained about their situation.

In the lawsuit, filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, Feliciano Velasco Rojas and Luiz Guzman Rojas contend they were brought to First Pick Farms against their will in July 2017, having previously worked at a farm in North Carolina. First Pick Farms is in West Olive, a small community about 30 miles west of Grand Rapids.

Specifically, the complaint alleges violations of the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act and the Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act. Velasco Rojas and Guzman Rojas were migrant farm workers from Mexico, and had legally entered the U.S. through work visas, per the complaint. The pair are being represented by the Michigan Immigrant Rights Center, Farmworker Justice and Farmworker Legal Services.

Messages sent to a pair of executives at First Pick Farms were not returned as of writing. According to its website, First Pick Farms focuses on sustainable farming.

The workers are seeking damages, both financial and legal, against the farm through the Trafficking Victim Protection Reauthorization Act, which allows victims of trafficking, including labor trafficking, to sue their traffickers for civil monetary penalties.

In the complaint, the workers contend that First Pick Farms worked with Antonio Sanchez, a field supervisor who recruited and employed migrant workers to staff the farms during blueberry picking season, which normally is during the summer months. The lawsuit states Sanchez was the one who coordinated the harsh working and living conditions for the workers, and the farm operators knew of his conduct while it happened.

In the middle of a July 2017 night, Sanchez told the pair, and others at the North Carolina farm, they'd be leaving for Michigan, according to the lawsuit. The filing says the group was photographed and later given false identification, after being rounded up on vans for the journey. Once they arrived in west Michigan, the group had to contend with harsh working conditions and undesirable living quarters, according to the lawsuit.

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“Upon Plaintiffs' arrival in Michigan, Defendants compelled Plaintiffs to work in grueling conditions picking blueberries as many as twelve hours per day without breaks, seven days per week and to live in employer-provided substandard housing,” the lawsuit states.

Workers stayed in a three-bedroom, two-bathroom home in Wyoming, a suburb of Grand Rapids, according to the lawsuit. The lawsuit states that two female workers shared one bedroom, while the other 28 people had to spread through the rest of the home. The house was unfurnished, per the complaint, and its kitchen was too small to adequately serve the 30 people who lived there.

The false identification information was used by First Pick Farms' human resources division to fill out paperwork, the lawsuit claims. Those who had information rejected were sent back to Sanchez, who then provided them with different falsified information, so they could work at the farm, the suit claims. Administrative staff at the farm reviewed and approved the paperwork, per the complaint.

The lawsuit alleges workers were paid unfairly, and hours were not accurately tracked. Production standards were also enforced against workers, who were given picking quotas, per the lawsuit. Guzman Rojas claims in the lawsuit he was also forced to drive workers between the farm and the home, despite not having a legal driver's license. As a driver, Guzman Rojas wasn't compensated for transportation costs, the complaint states.

Guzman Rojas and Velasco Rojas were allowed to return to North Carolina at the conclusion of blueberry picking season in Sept. 2017.

The lawsuit was assigned to U.S. District Judge Paul Maloney in Kalamazoo.

In a statement, an attorney representing Guzman Rojas and Velasco Rojas said migrant workers are often unfairly subjected to untenable working conditions.

“As we continually see, farmworkers are not safe from exploitation even when they follow all established legal protocol,” said Dorian Slaybod, a staff attorney with Farmworker Legal Services.  “A lack of oversight allows bad actors to take advantage of workers and encourages employers to ignore civil and human rights violations.”

Contact Arpan Lobo: [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @arpanlobo.

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