"Sunnyside mushroom farm will pay $3.4 million for violating the civil rights of its workers", 17 May 2023

Attorney General Bob Ferguson today announced a Sunnyside mushroom farm will pay $3.4 million to resolve a lawsuit asserting unfair, deceptive and discriminatory actions against female farmworkers and Washington-based workers....

The Attorney General’s Office estimates more than 170 farmworkers are eligible for compensation...

Ferguson filed the lawsuit in Yakima County Superior Court in August 2022, after an investigation by his office revealed that Ostrom had been discriminating against its workers for over a year based on their sex and immigration status. Ostrom fired its largely female and Washington-based workforce and replaced them with male foreign guest workers hired through the H-2A Temporary Agricultural Program, in violation of the Washington Law Against Discrimination.

Ostrom invented pretextual reasons to discipline, terminate and refuse employment to these workers. Ostrom also placed job advertisements that misrepresented work requirements and wages, in violation of the Washington Consumer Protection Act. When workers complained about the unlawful treatment, Ostrom retaliated against the employees who spoke up...

Before April 2021, the Sunnyside facility employed an average of 117 workers from the local community and 87% of its workforce was female. By April 2022, Ostrom had hired 65 H-2A guest workers — 63 of them were male — to replace its majority-female, Washington-based workforce. Once Ostrom began hiring H-2A guest workers, it employed approximately 50 Washington workers, which reduced the average number of female workers by over 60%.

At the same time that it was firing its female workforce, a lead picker who worked at Ostrom posted to a Facebook group for Yakima-based farmworkers seeking “only males” to apply for Ostrom mushroom picking jobs. Managers also increased production demands on workers, pushing many female and Washington-based workers to find different jobs because they feared being disciplined or fired...