NC farmworkers settle human trafficking, wage-theft case against labor contractors

A group of migrant Mexican farmworkers were awarded thousands of dollars in a court settlement based on claims of human trafficking, unpaid wages and mistreatment while working in rural Johnston County.

Labor contractors José M. Gracia Harvesting, Inc., José M. Gracia, and Gracia & Sons, LLC were ordered to pay $102,500 to Lucia Gonzalez-Rodriguez, Nazaria Lara-Martinez and Yesica Velasco-Lopez, who were hired to do agricultural work in Four Oaks through seasonal H-2A visas.

The three women claimed they were trafficked and coerced into working without overtime pay by the contractors.

Gonzalez-Rodriguez received nearly $20,000 in Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act damages, court documents show.

Among the allegations in the lawsuit is that she was made to sign many documents in English without an interpreter, despite primarily speaking Mixteco, an indigenous Mexican language.

The Farmworker Unit of Legal Aid of North Carolina and the Workers Rights Project of the North Carolina Justice Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of Gonzalez-Rodriguez, Lara-Martinez and Velasco-Lopez in the U.S. Eastern District of North Carolina.

In a settlement, defendants don’t admit to wrongdoing or criminal conduct.

NC has largest agricultural guest worker program

North Carolina is one of the largest users in the U.S. of this agricultural guest worker program. H-2A workers often live in group housing such as barracks to primarily work in important North Carolina crops such as tobacco and sweet potatoes.

Labor contractors and farmers must house their workers as part of the H-2A program — which has received scrutiny from lawmakers and national media for human trafficking cases and substandard housing conditions.

From 2005 to 2020, employers around the U.S. were ordered to pay more than $42.5 million in back wages to 69,000 workers with seasonal low-wage jobs on H-2A and other agricultural visas, the Associated Press reported.

The settlement amount is composed of Fair Labor Standards Act unpaid wages, liquidated damages and punitive damages related to the Trafficking Victims Protection Reauthorization Act, according to court documents reviewed by The News & Observer.

Unpaid hours, bad conditions

While working for the Gracia contractors, Gonzalez-Rodriguez, Lara-Martinez and Velasco-Lopez were only paid for a fraction of the more than 100 hours a week they worked, according to the lawsuit. They also worked in poor conditions cooking meals for male farm workers hired by the contractors, the original lawsuit states.

Gonzalez-Rodriguez, Lara-Martinez and Velasco-Lopez said they were threatened with physical abuse and deportation by Gracia and his employees who “confiscated” their passports, according to court documents.

The lawsuit also states that the three women experienced sexual harassment and physical threats from their employers in the workplace.

The Gracia contractors legally recruited the women in Mexico strictly for agricultural work as required by the H-2A program, but the women learned after arriving at the Four Oaks job site that they’d be working in a kitchen cooking for male workers.

The lawsuit stated that the male H-2A farmworkers hired at the same site were being paid more than the three women restricted to kitchen work. Only the women were restricted to working in the kitchen, which “prevented those female employees the opportunity to higher, prevailing piece-rate wages available to (the) fieldworkers,” according to the lawsuit.

This isn’t the first time the Gracia contractors have had to pay for violating worker laws.

In August 2021, the U.S. Department of Labor found that Jose Gracia Harvesting Inc. violated recruiting, pay and migrant housing laws concerning workers at a Delaware melon farm, according to an August 2021 news release.

Federal regulators ordered the company to pay $14,000 in back wages to 47 workers after the DOL found they violated wage laws.

Contractors must make changes due to settlement

As part of the settlement, the Gracia labor contractors were ordered by the court to post signs in their labor camps in Spanish and English that explain the right to be paid overtime and the right for workers to have visitors in their housing.

Gracia contractors are also required to post additional signage published by the North Carolina Human Trafficking Commission advising workers of emergency resources.

They must also develop and share comprehensive sexual harassment and sexual assault policy, which did not previously exist, for and with their workers.

At least one week prior to migrant workers arriving each agricultural season, the contractors must now provide Legal Aid of North Carolina with a list of the migrant housing sites they own or operate in order to allow for inspection of the housing.