Casertano Greenhouses & Farms in Cheshire brings fresh natural greens to the holiday and Christmas decor of many homes with the help of agricultural workers from Mexico.
But a new federal lawsuit filed by some of those workers accuses the business and a national labor contractor of exploiting its migrant workforce, violating the terms of a temporary agricultural visa program.
In the suit, filed in the U.S. District Court in Connecticut, the workers allege they were forced to work overtime without pay, take unpaid leaves and pay for their own travel and other expenses1, among other claims.
“Something that I find kind of ironic about the situation is that the workers were regularly denied permission to leave their housing units for things like going to Mass,” said Natalia Poblete, who is with the Yale Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic at Yale Law School.
“Meanwhile, they’re creating Christmas decor,” she said.
Poblete along with faculty and four other students from Yale Law school are representing the workers.
The defendants named in the suit are Casertano Greenhouses and national labor contractor Manzana LLC. Connecticut Public’s efforts to contact Manzana were unsuccessful. Rick Grimaldi, a representative for Casertano, said in a statement that the business treats all workers with dignity and respect.
“We deny the allegations and are confident that as the process plays out, it will confirm that they are baseless,” Grimaldi said.
Workers in vulnerable positions
Temporary workers are provided both employment and housing through the H-2A visa program, which allows contractors to source agricultural laborers from abroad to perform seasonal work in the United States.
In a press release, plaintiff Francisco Javier Zavala Martinez said he took the job at Casertano out of desperation.
“I came to the U.S. because my mother was sick, and her roof caved in,” Zavala Martinez said in the release. “I needed work and I stayed quiet about the abuse for four years. The stress was awful. But I want other workers to know that they have rights, that there are laws that protect us.”
The lawsuit alleges that as early as 2019, Casertano has worked with Manzana to recruit foreign workers. It then “systematically cheated” the plaintiffs and other workers out of wages, forced them to pay illegal recruitment fees and travel costs, and threatened them with deportation, said Poblete, the Yale law student.
“All this conduct violated the federal rules of the H-2A visa program,” Poblete said.
Manzana has been sued at least twice before for systemic abuse of the H-2A program outside of Connecticut, according to Theodore Walter, another Yale law student representing the plaintiffs.
According to court filings, one case filed in the District of Puerto Rico involving Manzana settled.
Another case in the Western District of Michigan in which the federal law claim was dismissed and remanded also ended in a settlement, according to conversations with advocates involved in the case, Walter said.
Workers in the H-2A program depend on the program for housing, their immigration status and for employment to provide for their families, giving the employers “enormous power over workers,” she said.
Given that H-2A workers are often isolated geographically, socially and linguistically, they face significant barriers to speaking out against the injustices they face, according to Poblete.
Seeking damages
The legal team estimates each worker is owed thousands of dollars in unpaid wages.
Poblete said the plaintiffs also claim they were forced to take a month of unpaid vacation and accept payment for the work that they did before the vacation upon their return.
The workers were kept on this delayed payment schedule, according to the lawsuit, forcing them to continue working through the end of the season.
Many of the workers took out debts to cover the travel costs and other fees, she said, which exacerbated their economic vulnerability.
“They have been essentially forced into a cycle of dependence on their exploitative employers,” causing the plaintiffs extreme stress, anxiety, and depression, Poblete said.
The plaintiffs are seeking recovery of their unpaid wages. They are also seeking compensatory damages for emotional distress and liquidated and punitive damages.
Federal program under scrutiny
In a written statement, Casertano denied the allegations, stating, “Casertano Greenhouses is a family company founded three generations ago by immigrants to this country and we have been a mainstay in our community since 1929. We treat all of our employees with dignity and respect.”
The company said the issue lies with the federal visa program.
“This complaint was filed by students from the Yale Law School, with the assistance of an attorney who has a history of filing these complaints. Their issue, as a lot of the allegations show, seems to be with the H-2A program itself and not about how we run our family business or how we treat our employees,” Grimaldi, Casertano's representative, wrote.
In regards to other claims made in the complaint, Casertano denied allegations that supervisors gave preferential treatment to employees who were not H-2A visa workers.
“We take the allegations very seriously not just because they malign our company but also because they cast aspersions on our employees,” Grimaldi said in the statement.
The plaintiffs and the Yale legal team are prepared to go to trial if necessary, according to Poblete.
“Numerous watchdog organizations and the Department of Labor have known for a long time that the H-2A program is rife with abuse,” Poblete said. “The plaintiffs in this lawsuit have demonstrated really extraordinary bravery in demanding justice on behalf of all H-2A workers at Casertano Farms.”
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1Complaint at pg. 29: “When Mr. Zavala first saw the condition of the housing facility, he was surprised and upset at how dirty and crowded it was. // On at least one occasion, Mr. Zavala asked Supervisor Reyes if he could leave the housing facility to attend mass at a nearby church. Supervisor Reyes told Mr. Zavala he did not have permission to leave the housing facility outside of the weekly trip to town.”
