{"id":48816,"date":"2021-05-18T17:11:12","date_gmt":"2021-05-18T21:11:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/?p=48816"},"modified":"2021-05-18T17:11:21","modified_gmt":"2021-05-18T21:11:21","slug":"feds-say-the-rights-of-homestead-farmworkers-were-violated-the-lehigh-acres-contractor-fined","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/2021\/05\/feds-say-the-rights-of-homestead-farmworkers-were-violated-the-lehigh-acres-contractor-fined\/","title":{"rendered":"Feds say the rights of Homestead farmworkers were violated. The Lehigh Acres contractor fined."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

A Florida company that sent foreign workers to Torbert Farms in Homestead paid $21,748 in back wages and a $1,412 civil penalty after violating H-2A program rules <\/a>about feeding workers, the U.S. Department of Labor said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The back wages were for 81 workers provided to Torbert by Lehigh Acres\u2019 Pride Harvesting, $268.49 per worker. Pride Harvesting is located at 729 PEACOCK AVE LEHIGH ACRES, FL 33974<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Pride Harvesting owner Ray Ozuna says, \u201cI didn\u2019t intentionally do anything wrong\u201d and didn\u2019t mistreat his workers \u2014 he wants the same ones back each year because it makes work easier for everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ozuna said he changed the way he handled meal payment and didn\u2019t do an adequate job of bookkeeping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The H-2A guest worker visa program allows places like Torbert Farms<\/a> to use non-immigrant foreign workers for seasonal work if they anticipate a shortage of U.S. workers. Companies such as Pride Harvesting bring in the workers and handle the mechanics of the program, which is what Ozuna said Pride did for the seven-month squash and zucchini season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Ozuna said he put the workers up at Florida City motels Holiday Motel and the Knights Inn. As neither has kitchens or kitchenettes, H-2A rules say Pride had to provide a catering company so workers could get $12.46 in meals per day for each worker<\/p>\n\n\n\n

An example of a basic meal, Ozuna said, would be three tacos with fillings, rice and beans with all the ice water they could drink. Anything above that \u2014 more food, a Gatorade, a Coke (popular for an afternoon sugar boost, Ozuna said) \u2014 was extra.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 2019-20, Ozuna said, instead of deducting the cost of the basic meal from the employee paychecks, he thought he would simplify the process. He let the workers pay the caterer everything out of pocket.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Pride didn\u2019t keep records well enough to separate what workers paid as the basic meal cost and how much was above the basic meal. The lack of documentation, Ozuna said, made it seem as if the workers were being overcharged by that $21,748.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For the 2020-21 season, Ozuna said, the cost of meals gets deducted from a worker\u2019s paychecks. They sign a form when they get whatever the basic meal is, almost like a school cafeteria, then go through the line a second time and pay for any extras they want out of pocket.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A Florida company that sent foreign workers to Torbert Farms in Homestead paid $21,748 in back wages and a $1,412 civil penalty after violating H-2A program rules about feeding workers, the U.S.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":48817,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57,32],"tags":[299],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48816"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48816"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48816\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48818,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48816\/revisions\/48818"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48817"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48816"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48816"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thelehighacresgazette.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48816"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}