“US Labor Department cracks down on NC contractor for migrant farmworker abuse, wage theft”

The federal government cracked down on a migrant labor contractor in eastern North Carolina for widespread farmworker labor violations, the U.S. Department of Labor said Monday.

Investigators with the DOL’s Wage and Hour Division found that labor contractor Valentino Lopez, of Atkinson in Pender County, violated laws and abused workers participating in the federal H-2A visa program in the 2020 and 2021 growing seasons.

The DOL fined Lopez $62,531 for the violations and banned him from employing temporary migrant workers for three years…

According to the DOL, Lopez recruited, hired, housed and transported H-2A program workers to pick blueberries at Ronnie Carter Farms Inc. in Sampson County…

Lopez has not been sued, but the labor violations he is accused of are consistent with those mentioned in the lawsuits. That includes confiscating workers’ passports immediately after they arrived from Mexico, wage theft, neglecting to pay inbound and outbound transportation expenses for workers, and charging workers fees between $150 and $8,000 to participate in the federal program.

Investigators learned that Lopez attempted to hide his intimidation and threats against his workers by returning all passports and visas to workers immediately before federal investigators arrived…

[The Resource Centre was not able to contact Ronnie Carter Farms to invite a response to the allegations; if a response is received in future this page will be updated accordingly.]