USA: Lawsuit alleges First Pick Farms blueberry farm exploited Mexican workers, incl. allegations of trafficking
摘要
日期: 2023年6月13日
地點: 美國
企業
First Pick Farms - Employer受影響的
受影響的總人數: 30
移民和移民工人: ( 2 - 墨西哥 , 農業和畜牧 , Men )議題
強迫勞動與當代奴隸制 , 心理健康 , Occupational Health & Safety , 恐嚇和威脅 , Wage Theft , 人口販賣 , Precarious/Unsuitable Living Conditions , Restricted mobility , 隱私回應
已邀請回應:是,由Journalist
後續行動: First Pick Farms did not immediately respond Monday to messages left by phone and on the company's website requesting comment. The suit requests unspecified damages.
資訊來源: News outlet
“Migrants were trafficked to work at Michigan blueberry farm, suit says”
A lawsuit filed in federal court alleges that a West Olive-based blueberry farm engaged in human trafficking and violated Michigan law.
The complaint, filed Friday in U.S. District Court for the Western District of Michigan, says two men from Mexico … with others, were coerced into boarding vans from North Carolina to Michigan in June 2017 and forced to work on the farm owned by First Pick Farms…
According to the lawsuit, Luis Guzman Rojas and Feliciano Velasco Rojas were awoken in the middle of the night in their residence in North Carolina by a First Pick Farms "agent and employee" telling them they were to be transported to Michigan. The complaint alleges that the man gave the two false identification and threatened to contact immigration authorities if they refused to comply. Guzman, of Michoacan, Mexico, and Velasco, of Oaxaca, Mexico, were transported along with 30 other H-2A workers, the suit says.
Gonzalo Peralta, a staff attorney at the Michigan Immigration Rights Center in Grand Rapids, said the plaintiffs were paid a piecemeal rate of approximately 50 cents per pound of blueberries they picked and required to pay rent of $25 a week for their housing…