Guestworker Sues 12 Mississippi Employers Over Minimum Wage Violations

Collective action suit seeks damages on behalf of hundreds of guestworkers

VARDAMAN, Mississippi – Several Mississippi growers have been served with a federal lawsuit filed by a Mexican farmworker for violating his rights under the federal minimum wage law, the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).

The farmworker filed the case on behalf of himself and potentially hundreds of other guestworkers who were employed by the Defendants and are alleged to have suffered similar minimum wage violations. In the lawsuit, the farmworker – who had been admitted to work in the United States under the federal government’s H-2A visa guestworker program for temporary agricultural workers – alleges that the Mississippi Growers Association and its grower-members violated guestworkers’ rights under the FLSA by not reimbursing them for travel, visa, and administrative expenses that they incurred in getting to their work sites in Mississippi. The worker, recruited to harvest sweet potatoes, is represented by Texas RioGrande Legal Aid's special farmworkers project Southern Migrant Legal Services (SMLS) of Nashville, Tennessee and private attorneys Robert B. McDuff and Edward Tuddenham.

“Guestworkers incur substantial debts before they ever begin working for an H-2A employer, including the costs of securing the visa, getting to the place of employment, and often paying significant recruitment fees,” said Benjamin Holt, the workers’ attorney with SMLS. “When guestworkers are not reimbursed for these expenses, their debt makes them far more vulnerable to exploitative employment practices.”

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