The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York last week issued a temporary restraining order prohibiting a Patterson nursery and garden supply business, and its president, from threatening its employees and obstructing a U.S. Department of Labor investigation.
In Nov. 2022, the department’s Wage and Hour Division began an investigation of Berkshire Nursery & Supply Corp. and Jesus Flores, its president, to ensure compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act and the H-2A provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act.
Over the next several weeks, the department alleged Flores harassed and intimidated employees repeatedly. He threatened workers and their families with physical harm, deportation and blacklisting. Flores also instructed them to lie and provide false information to division investigators.
In response, the department’s Office of the Solicitor obtained a temporary restraining order from the court on Jan. 18, 2023. The court’s order forbids Flores and Berkshire Nursery & Supply Corp. from, among other things, “harming and threatening harm, termination, blacklisting of future employment; contacting immigration authorities or other law enforcement; withholding wages or reducing hours; and intimidating, coercing, threatening or retaliating or discriminating against their employees in any other way to prevent or dissuade them from participating in the department’s investigation or in any other FLSA-protected activity.”
“The threats by...
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