STATESBORO, GA — A U.S. federal judge recently ordered a Georgia Vidalia onion farmer to pay workers $1.4 million in unpaid overtime and damages over allegations that the defendant failed to properly pay workers under federal labor and wage laws. The award will compensate approximately 460 workers employed by Bland Farms Production and Packing LLC from the Spring of 2012 until the end of 2017.
The unpaid overtime lawsuit, brought by the Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, Statesboro Division, accuses Bland Farms Production and co-defendants of improperly applying federal overtime pay exemptions for farmers. Under the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA), farmers are exempt from paying workers overtime wages for growing, harvesting, and packaging the business’s own crops.
The complaint against Bland Farms alleged that the defendant attempted to claim an overtime pay exemption for farm workers involved in packaging produce brought from other farms, a clear violation of federal laws. The defendant argued that it had a hand in growing the onions brought in by other farmers, which both parties had an agreement to buy and sell at harvest, thus making it a product of Bland Farms Production and Packaging.
According to statistics, the Vidalia onion crop is huge business in the state of Georgia where only 20 counties may grow the strain known for its incredible sweetness. The Georgia Department of Agriculture valued last year’s Vidalia onion harvest at $120 million. The case is another example of the creative yet illegal lengths many big businesses will go to keep business costs low by suppressing worker wages.
Unfortunately, hundreds of thousands of farm workers in the U.S. still do not have overtime pay protections like the rest of the country enjoys. However, some states are pushing towards creating laws aimed at improving farm worker wage practices and restoring equality to all hard working employees trying to earn a living for themselves and their families.
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