A group of six black farm workers in Mississippi is suing a farm that they say brought white foreign workers from South Africa and paid them more in violation of federal law.
The Mississippi Center for Justice and Southern Migrant Legal Services last week filed a federal lawsuit on behalf of workers against the Pitts Farm Partnership, which grows cotton, soybeans and corn in Sunflower County.
According to the lawsuit, the farm violated the federal H-2A visa program, which provides equal treatment for U.S. workers and immigrants. Four of the plaintiffs reported doing farm work from February to November and were paid $ 7.25 an hour and $ 8.25 for weekend work. Additionally, as of 2014, the farm hired a recruitment company to hire seasonal workers, and the Pitts family did not make the same effort to hire U.S. workers after hiring the company.
However, the farm was paying white workers $ 9.87 an hour in 2014, and the rate increased annually until it reached $ 11.83 an hour. Amal Bouhabib, an attorney for Southern Migrant Legal Services, told CBS News that the visa program allows U.S. farmers to hire foreign workers when local workers are unavailable.
“It does not allow farmers to pay their American workers less than their foreign workers or to replace willing and able US workers,” Bouhabib said in a press release.
The lawsuit added that the Pitts family hired a white supervisor who occasionally used the N word, and when the Pitts family became aware of the situation, they did nothing.
Your pinkins of the Mississippi Center for Justice said in a press release that, given the high unemployment rate in the Mississippi Delta, it was unacceptable and against the law to include and pay foreign workers more than US workers.
“Unfortunately, this case is emblematic of a disastrous pattern in the south. Our research shows that farm owners are increasingly abusing the H-2A program and denying US workers opportunities, ”Pinkins said. “The case also reflects our nation’s deep, ugly history of black labor exploitation. For far too long, powerful corporations have abused black Americans out of greed. “
Immigration and foreign labor issues are not uncommon in Mississippi, a state with a significant agricultural footprint. In 2019, ICE agents raided seven chicken processing plants in the state and arrested 680 foreign workers.
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