The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission reached a $1.2 million settlement with a former Kunia farm in a human trafficking lawsuit involving more than 150 Thai farmworkers.
The settlement, covering workers imported from Thailand from 2003 to 2005 by Del Monte Fresh Produce, was announced Monday by the EEOC in Los Angeles, which has described the case as the largest involving human trafficking in agriculture.
Del Monte, one of the country’s leading producers of fresh fruit and vegetables, halted its pineapple production at Kunia in 2006. A spokeswoman at its Coral Gables, Fla., headquarters said the company had no comment on the lawsuit or the settlement.
Del Monte acknowledged no wrongdoing under the settlement, according to a decree filed Monday in federal court in Hawaii.
At a Los Angeles news conference, Theim Chaiyajit said he was recruited by California-based farm labor contractor Global Horizons in 2003 and worked at Del Monte for 22 days but was never paid. The company seized his passport and made Thai immigrants work six days a week, he said.
"I shared a one-bedroom apartment with 11 Thai workers," Chaiyajit said, using an interpreter.
The EEOC settlement said Del Monte contracted with Global Horizons for three years ending in 2005 to tend its Kunia pineapple fields.
Chaiyajit said Global Horizons promised him wages of $3,000 a month, which was three times what he was making in Thailand. He said he mortgaged his home, sold his truck and took out loans to pay Global Horizons nearly $21,000 in recruitment fees. The Thai worker said he still owes the company nearly $9,500.
Rosa Viramontes, EEOC acting district director in Los Angeles, described Thai workers as "a particularly vulnerable segment of our society."
Farms like Del Monte engaged the services of Global Horizons as a labor contractor but were liable as a joint employer under federal labor laws, said Anna Park, EEOC regional attorney.
The settlement marks the first in terms of holding farm labor contractors accountable for compliance with anti-discrimination laws, Park said.
"We hope this is wake-up call for others in the agricultural industry to follow Del Monte Fresh Produce’s lead in recognizing signs of potential abuses by farm labor contractors and taking proactive steps to hold them accountable," Park added.
Under the consent decree, the $1.2 million will be distributed to the Thai Del Monte farmworkers.
The EEOC filed lawsuits in Hawaii and Washington state in April 2011, alleging farmworkers were being subjected to uninhabitable housing, insufficient food, inadequate wages and deportation threats. The EEOC said that Global Horizons engaged in a pattern or practice of national origin and race discrimination, harassment and retaliation when it trafficked Thai male victims to farms in Hawaii and Washington where they were subjected to severe abuse.
The Thai workers were brought in to harvest a variety of crops from pineapples to coffee beans and were assigned to six farms in Hawaii: Captain Cook Coffee Co., Del Monte Fresh Produce, Kauai Coffee Co., Kelena Farms, MacFarms of Hawaii and Maui Pineapple Farms; and two farms in Washington: Green Acre Farms and Valley Fruit Orchards.
In addition to reaching a settlement with Del Monte, the EEOC is completing settlements with Mac Farms of Hawaii, Kelena Farms, Captain Cook Coffee Co. and Kauai Coffee Co.
A Feb. 11 trial date has been set for Global Horizons and Maui Pineapple, which was shut down at the end of 2009.
Last week Mordechai Orian, president of now-defunct Global Horizons, told The Associated Press that his company won’t agree to a monetary settlement, but would agree to employer training conditions. A federal judge last year dismissed human trafficking charges against Orian and other associates after federal prosecutors abruptly dropped similar accusations against owners of Hawaii-based Aloun Farms.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
