The Labor Department has recovered more than $540,000 in wages for 268 H-2A workers in North Carolina after uncovering violations of the Fair Labor Standards Act and the H-2A program.
Investigators in DOL's Wage and Hour Division determined Becerra Enterprises Inc. of Arcadia, Florida, violated multiple H-2A regulations, which include “failing to pay some workers their full wages, to provide safe and adequate housing and to reimburse workers’ transportation costs,” the department said.
Owner Luis A. Becerra and his son, Luis A. Becerra Jr., “recruited, hired, housed and transported H-2A workers to harvest sweet potatoes, cucumbers and tobacco at Blake Edwards Roberson Farms and Taylor Grimes Farms in Robersonville and Anderson Farms in Tarboro, North Carolina.”
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The division assessed $12,526 in civil penalties to Luis A. Becerra Jr., and $21,257 in civil money penalties to Becerra Enterprises. All fines have been paid and all wages recovered. Along with the penalties, the Labor Department prohibited the company from participating in the H-2A program for three years.
“U.S. law guarantees workers’ rights regardless of the place they call home,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Richard Blaylock in Raleigh, North Carolina. “The Wage and Hour Division will hold employers who jeopardize agricultural workers’ safety and health and deny them their full wages accountable.”
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