US Department of Labor recovers $268K in back wages, damages for 76 workers employed by onion processing plant

PAYETTE, ID – The U.S. Department of Labor recovered $268,417 in back wages and liquidated damages for 76 workers after finding the employer housed them in substandard conditions and wrongly exempted many of them from overtime in violation of federal regulations. 

An investigation by the department’s Wage and Hour Division found Ontario Partners LLC had temporary H-2A agricultural workers processing onions from a farm not on their program application and did not pay the workers time-and-one-half rates for hours over 40 in a workweek. The Fair Labor Standards Act only allows employers to use its overtime exemption for employees who only process the employer’s own product.

 Additionally, investigators found the Payette company violated H-2A requirements by doing the following:

• Paying H-2A workers more than two U.S. workers.
• Failing to reimburse workers for transportation costs.
• Providing unsafe transportation to and from the work site.
• Housing workers in unsafe conditions with overflowing trash, mold and non-working smoke detectors.

The division assessed $44,152 in civil money penalties for willful violations of the FLSA, as well as various violations of federal regulations under the H-2A and H-2B visa programs. 

“Farmworkers provide essential labor that helps feed millions of Americans and have rights we will vigorously protect, regardless of the country they call home,” said Wage and Hour Division District Director Katherine Walum in Portland, Oregon. “Agricultural employers who benefit from the H-2A program must provide safe transportation, pay the wages they promised and the costs of transportation to and from the U.S., and provide clean and safe housing.”

Owned and operated by Partner’s Produce, Ontario Partners LLC is a full-service onion packer and processor in Payette.

Learn more about the Wage and Hour Division, including a search tool to use if you think you may be owed back wages collected by the division and how to file an online complaint. For confidential compliance assistance, employees and employers can call the agency’s toll-free helpline at 866-4US-WAGE (487-9243), regardless of where they are from. The division can speak with callers in more than 200 languages.

Download the agency’s new Timesheet App for free on iOS and Android devices in English or Spanish to ensure hours and pay are accurate.

This news release is also available in Spanish.