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A U.S. federal agency filed lawsuits against a farm services provider, alleging that it is using the forced labor of farm workers.
The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC), in two lawsuits filed on April 20, alleged that labor broker Global Horizons brought more than 200 Thai men into Hawaii and Washington state, telling them that they could work for good wages and promising temporary visas.
However, the company took their passports when they entered the country, and threatened them with deportation if they complained about it. The men received much lower wages than promised and they were forced to live in vermin-ridden housing at eight farms throughout Hawaii and Washington, the EEOC alleged. Food was withheld.
The men could also not leave the premises and were subjected to harassment and physical assault. On top of all that, the men were forced to pay Global Horizons for “recruitment fees,” which put them into debt, the federal agency stated.
“The mistreatment of workers alleged in these cases is intolerable in our legal system,” stated Jacqueline A. Berrien, the Chair of the EEOC. “These lawsuits highlight the critically important role that the EEOC must play in protecting the rights of victims of labor trafficking.”
The lawsuits claim that the company violated workers’ civil rights and it is seeking monetary damage for the workers.
The EEOC filed a separate suit against marine services company Signal International for putting 500 Indian welders in segregated housing and used discriminatory employment terms and conditions against them. These workers and their families were forced to live in the company’s “substandard, unsanitary accommodations” in Mississippi and Texas. They were charged fees to live there as well.
Other EEOC claims against Signal include providing workers with bad food, referred to workers by numbers instead of by their names, and physically attacking workers for complaining, according to a news release.
The lawsuits were based on Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which forbids discrimination. The agency had tried to settle with the accused brokers and employers. Now it will seek wages, punitive damages, and injunctions to prevent discrimination in the future.
