July 16, 2010
Media Contact: Emily L. Dietz
1-800-852-975 x 2160

For Immediate Release:

Seven U.S. farm workers who lost their jobs to foreign guest workers were left stranded in fields hours from their home while their employer went to the Mexico border to pick up foreign guest workers.  The U.S. workers filed a lawsuit in United States District Court against their employer, S&H (S&H) Farm Labor. They are represented by Anna Dahlquist and Pamela Bridge, attorneys at Community Legal Services, a not for profit civil law firm in Arizona.

In June 2009, the workers were driven from San Luis, Arizona in a bus owned by S&H to fields in Dateland, Arizona, nearly 80 miles away. After the workers spent the day harvesting in the sweltering heat, they found themselves stranded in the fields with no way to return home. They were informed by their foreman that S&H had decided to send the busses to the border to pick up foreign guest workers rather than provide the U.S. workers with return transportation to San Luis.

The U.S. workers were forced to walk several miles at night along the highway until they found transportation back to San Luis. The next day they were informed by S&H that their positions had been filled by the foreign workers.

“These U.S. workers are willing to work in an Arizona summer picking watermelon.  They count on these (low) wages to support their families,” stated Pamela Bridge. “S&H cost these workers weeks of pay.”

To protect the wages and working conditions of the domestic agricultural workforce under the
H-2A program which governs the recruitment of foreign labor, federal law requires employers to extend a preference to qualified U.S. farm workers before turning to foreign farm labor.   If the employer can prove to the Department of Labor that it lacks adequate domestic labor, only then do the laws allow employers to bring in foreign labor under the H-2A program

“S&H blatantly violated the H-2A program by firing U.S. workers in favor of foreign labor,” explained Pamela Bridge.  “We are concerned because S&H has a history of violating provisions of the H-2A program, yet the Department of Labor and the Department of Economic Security continue to allow them to bring in foreign labor in lieu of domestic workers. In this economic climate, it is difficult to understand why the government would allow guest workers to take the jobs of U.S. workers.”

In the lawsuit filed by Community Legal Services in Federal District Court, the workers are asking for statutory, compensatory and punitive damages under the Fair Labor Standards Act and the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Workers Protection Act in addition to injunctive relief against S&H to prevent future violations.