Lawsuits allege migrant workers exploited
The workers came to Kentucky from Mexico in search of good-paying jobs, toiling in tobacco fields through a federal program that authorizes farmers to hire guest workers for jobs they claim they cannot fill with U.S. workers.
Instead, three federal lawsuits allege that between 2013 and this year 39 workers from Mexico were paid substandard wages, lived in squalid housing, and some were threatened with jail or deportation if they complained. Some workers, the lawsuits claim, lived as virtual prisoners after employers confiscated their passports.
Though employers are supposed to provide adequate housing, the lawsuits describe dwellings infested with bedbugs, lice and rodents, a lack of mattresses or furniture and poor plumbing that left some workers bathing from a bucket and others using a portable toilet outside.
The migrant workers borrowed money and traveled thousands of miles for jobs that didn't meet minimum federal standards, the lawsuits allege. In some cases, employers illegally forced workers to pay costs for travel, visas, rent and utilities.
Calling such practices "forced labor" tantamount to human trafficking, the Nashville-based Southern Migrant Legal Services, a legal aid group, filed three lawsuits Thursday against five Kentucky tobacco farms in Scott, Monroe and Nicholas counties, alleging such practices violate federal law governing the program for guest farm workers known as H-2A.
One lawsuit also names a Lexington law group, Conley-Morgan, as a defendant and alleges a lawyer at the firm who handled government paperwork for one of the farms was involved in the scheme to misrepresent working conditions and coerce workers into staying.
Caitlin Berberich, one of the lawyers representing the workers, said the Nashville legal services group decided to investigate and file the lawsuits after receiving a growing number of complaints from migrant workers in Kentucky tobacco fields. The Kentucky Equal Justice Center also is involved in the case.
"We get so many calls from workers in Kentucky," Berberich said. "Kentucky is among the top users of the H-2A program."
The lawsuits name as plaintiffs McKenzie Farms in Stamping Ground and managers, Gene McKenzie and Austin McKenzie in Scott County as well as the farm's Lexington lawyer; Tracy Dillard of Fountain Run who operates a farm in Monroe County; and three Nicholas County farms, Planck Farms and B.S. Land and Cattle Co., operated by Earl Lee Planck Jr. and High Point Farms LLC, operated by John D. Watkins.
None could be reached for comment Friday. A lawsuit presents only one side of the case.
The lawsuit involving McKenzie Farms alleges migrant workers employed in 2013 consistently were paid less than allowed by federal regulations, which establish a base salary for states that use guest workers. In Kentucky, the base rate was $9.80 an hour in 2013, rising last year to $10.10 per hour.
Instead, workers were paid $7 an hour in cash and forced to use some of it to pay $2,000 each for visas, $180 for transportation from Mexico and $80 per month in rent for substandard housing, the lawsuit said. Workers who complained were threatened with jail or deportation.
At the Dillard farm, migrant workers hired between 2012 and 2015 were paid below the federally allowed wage, instead paid primarily on a "piece rate" of 45 cents per plant cutting tobacco and 38 cents for stripping tobacco, the lawsuit alleges.
The lawsuit makes similar allegations about conditions at the Nicholas County farms for workers employed there between 2013 and 2015.
Berberich said the use of guest workers has expanded rapidly, particularly in Southern states.
"Unfortunately, many employers see the H-2A program as a way to obtain a captive labor force that is unlikely to complain about illegal working conditions," she said.
Reporter Deborah Yetter can be reached at (502) 582-4228.