5 South African workers claim mistreatment on Arkansas farm

Source: Arkansas Online, 16/01/2019

The five say they entered the United States with H-2A non-
immigrant visas to work temporarily at Hood Brothers Farm in
Crittenden County last year. But, they allege, Michael and Robert
Hood subjected them to `frequent verbal abuse,` threatened to have
them `arrested, deported, or blacklisted,` violated the terms of
their contract and illegally fired them.
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Administered by the U.S. Department of Labor, the H-2A program
allows foreign citizens to enter the U.S. for temporary or
seasonal agriculture work and permits U.S. farmers to hire those
workers if there is a shortage of domestic workers. H-2A employers
are required to pay inbound and outbound transportation and
provide free housing.
Three of the five South Africans worked for Hood Brothers Farm
from about Feb. 28 to about April 5, and the other two worked from
about March 8 until about April 4, according to the lawsuit filed
in the Jonesboro division of the U.S. District for the Eastern
District of Arkansas. The case has been assigned to Judge D. Price
Marshall Jr.
The lawsuit didn`t specify the amount in damages sought.
The five signed contracts to work for the Hoods at least 48 hours
a week through Dec. 15, 2018, at an hourly wage of $10.73, the
lawsuit said. Each man spent between $1,786 and $2,352 on
transportation and visa and consular fees in getting from South
Africa to the Hoods` farm, according to the lawsuit.
Robert Hood said Tuesday that he wasn`t aware of the lawsuit until
a newspaper reporter called.
He said he and his brother, Michael, have been in business
together for 30 years and have used the H-2A program since 2011
with few problems. `You hit a few snags once in a while, and you
just work your way through it and with the worker,` he said.
The lawsuit said the Hoods failed to fully reimburse the five for
their transportation costs, despite terms in the work contract
stating that such expenses would be paid in the first week on the
job. Instead, they were paid $400, the lawsuit said.
`The H-2A program is meant to assist U.S. farmers in getting the
labor they need when U.S. workers are not available,` Southern
Migrant Legal Services, which filed the lawsuit on behalf of the
five South Africans, said in a news release. `Unfortunately, some
farmers see it as an opportunity to mistreat and underpay foreign
workers, knowing that most of them will be too afraid to speak up
for fear of being fired before they can pay off their debts, or
worse, deported.`
Southern Migrant Legal Services is based in Nashville, Tenn., and
provides free legal aid to migrant farmworkers in Alabama,
Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi and Tennessee. It is
affiliated with a similar group, Texas Rio Grande Legal Aid Inc. A
spokesman for the group said the five have returned to South
African but can return to the U.S. when needed as the lawsuit
progresses.
According to the Economic Policy Institute, the U.S. Department of
Labor certified 165,741 farm jobs that could be filled in 2016
with workers with H-2A visas. About 134,000 H-2A workers were
hired that year, the group said.
The lawsuit said the five plaintiffs `were forced to apply their
knowledge of how to operate the farm equipment from prior
experience` but that the Hoods` farm operation was `more
technologically advanced` than equipment the five had ever used.
Robert Hood said the five who arrived to work for him and his
brother last year were problems from the start, misrepresenting
their experience and complaining in their first days about the
jobs they were asked to do, he said.
`Two guys flat-out lied about their experience,` Robert Hood said.
`One couldn`t drive a tractor. Another hit a pole. They didn`t
have driver`s licenses.`
Hood said that, by law, he made a farm truck available to the five
to get to and from fields and to make trips into Earle, the
nearest town, at least once a week for groceries.
The five alleged in their lawsuit that the Hoods placed a tracking
device on the farm truck. `If Plaintiffs deviated from the Hood
Brothers` instructions by driving to another town a few miles away
or taking longer to return than they were told, the Hood Brothers
berated Plaintiffs and threatened that they could be terminated
and sent back to South Africa for their disobedience,` the lawsuit
said.
Robert Hood said, `They started driving into Earle for groceries,
and that`s fine. Then they started going to liquor stores 5 and 10
miles beyond that. I am not required to provide a farm truck for
those trips or for a trip to Beale Street in Memphis, like they
wanted to do one night.`
One or more of the five, during their maximum 35 days on the farm,
took the truck on 25 trips to Earle, Wynne or Jonesboro, he said.
Hood said he and his brother met with representatives of the U.S.
Department of Labor after the `complete mutiny` of the five
workers. No citations or violations have been filed by the
department, he said.
`It took us six weeks to get a replacement crew, and they stayed
through Dec. 15 without any problems,` he said.