DOL drops ‘hot goods’ charges against growers
The U.S. Department of Labor will return money previously paid by Oregon blueberry growers and drop lawsuits accusing them of “hot goods” labor law violations.
The agency will also pay an additional $30,000 to each of the two farms — Pan-American Berry Growers and B&G Ditchen — as part of a recent legal settlement.
The farms have agreed to withdraw their counterclaims against DOL and neither party is admitting to any liability under the deal.
Tim Bernasek, attorney for the growers, said his clients are relieved the dispute has finally ended and are satisfied with the settlement terms.
“They are very appreciative of the support the industry has given them,” Bernasek said.
Capital Press was unable to reach DOL for comment.
The controversy was sparked in 2012, when the agency claimed the farmers had paid pickers less than the minimum wage and threatened to block their shipments of blueberries as unlawfully harvested “hot goods.”
Rather than fight DOL’s findings in court — and risk losing millions of dollars of fruit — the growers agreed to pay $220,000 in alleged back wages and penalties so the agency would lift its “hot goods” objection.
Last year, however, a federal judge overturned those consent decrees because they had been signed under economic duress by the farmers, who had to waive their right to challenge DOL’s minimum wage violation claims.
When those deals were overturned, the farmers were prepared to fight the DOL’s allegations that they employed unrecorded “ghost workers” who helped other pickers harvest berries. Because pickers are paid on a piece rate, the agency claimed they received less than the minimum wage.
Agency records uncovered by the Oregon Farm Bureau showed that DOL based its accusations on a formula that assumed pickers who harvested more than a certain amount of blueberries per hour were assisted by such “ghost workers.”
The Farm Bureau claimed the formula was flawed, since workers can actually pick much larger amounts, and said DOL had scant evidence of wrongdoing by the growers.
Records show that DOL was unable to identify the vast majority of the 1,000 “ghost workers” that it claimed worked at the farms.
Even so, the legal dispute between DOL and the farmers threatened to escalate last year.
The agency argued that it couldn’t return $73,500 that had already been disbursed to workers while the farms demanded full repayment and $150,000 in damages for diminished fruit quality.
DOL also refiled complaints against the farms, adding new charges of wrongdoing going back farther in time and naming additional defendants.
In November 2014, though, the agency asked for the litigation to be delayed because it had entered settlement talks with the growers.