SAN FRANCISCO – Home to thousands of winemakers who produce 80 percent of the wine in the U.S., California vineyards also yield their share of unscrupulous employers who profit by taking advantage of migrant and seasonal farmworkers as the harvest season approaches.
To combat violations that deny workers their hard-earned wages or jeopardize their safety, the U.S. Department of Labor has stepped up its outreach and enforcement efforts in the Golden State.
Recent investigations of two farm labor contractors, Next Crop Inc. of Los Baños and Noble Vineyards Management Inc. of Ukiah, and grower Pebble Ridge Vineyards & Vine Estates LLC in Paicines by the department’s Wage and Hour Division collectively found employers failed to safely transport agricultural workers to and from the fields, violated numerous requirements of the Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act and the H-2A temporary agricultural program and allowed a 14-year-old child to work during school hours illegally.
The investigations led the division to assess more than $231,881 in civil money penalties and to recover $129,081 in back wages for 353 agricultural workers. Specifically, the investigations found the following:
Hyderabad: BRS leader Aedla Sudhakar Reddy strongly criticised the statements of HYDRAA commissioner A.V. Ranganath regarding the status of Bathukammakunta. The official had claimed that the place...