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Migrant workers sue area farmer
Friday, August 05, 2005
By MARLA A. GOLDBERG
mgoldberg@repub.com
SPRINGFIELD - Two Puerto Rican migrant workers have filed suit against a farmer, stating that he violated federal law by hiring foreigners when qualified U.S. citizens were available to work.

A father and son, Manuel Vega, 50, and Julio A. Vega, 28, both living in Puerto Rico, filed the civil complaint against Willard A. McKinstry, doing business as McKinstry's Market Garden of Chicopee, in Springfield's U.S. District Court on July 25. The Vegas are represented by Western Massachusetts Legal Services.

The Vegas worked for McKinstry during the 2001 growing season, and applied for openings in 2002 and 2003, but were not hired back. In both those years, McKinstry employed six foreign farm workers, the lawsuit states. Puerto Rico is a commonwealth of the United States.

In a phone interview Wednesday, McKinstry denied favoring foreign workers over domestic, and said he didn't rehire the Vegas because they caused problems.

McKinstry said Julio Vega "was not a good worker at all," and sometimes didn't make picking minimums, although McKinstry said he doesn't have documentation.

The Vegas also had relatives in Holyoke, McKinstry said, and children came onto his property and threw rocks at customers' cars, and hit the McKinstrys' pets with sticks. "They were running all over my farm, jumping on the tractors and everything else," he said.

When the Vegas applied to work for McKinstry a second time, McKinstry said he asked for a phone interview with them through a labor department office in Puerto Rico, "so I could tell them about the issues that I had with them." However, McKinstry said he didn't hear back from the office or the Vegas.

McKinstry said another problem was that the Vegas spoke very little English.

Farmers using foreign workers must certify to the labor department that there are insufficient domestic workers available, according to the lawsuit. Under the federal program which supplies foreign farm workers, jobs are advertised first via an interstate system.

The Vegas' lawsuit accuses McKinstry with violating a law requiring farmers to hire a qualified domestic worker who applies for an advertised opening, even while the first half of a foreign worker's contract is under way.

When McKinstry filed applications with the labor department to use foreign workers in 2002 and 2003, the job orders also were sent to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico Job Service, the lawsuit states. The Vegas identified themselves as willing to work.

In 2003, McKinstry's recruiting agent initially sought to interview the Vegas for jobs, but then canceled and told the Department of Employment and Training that McKinstry hired local help.

Work at McKinstry's included planting, cultivating, harvesting and picking, the lawsuit states. The job orders McKinstry filed called for 40 hours per week at $8.17 per hour in 2002, and 44 hours weekly at $8.53 an hour in 2003. Contracts spanned six or seven months.

McKinstry said he farms 85 acres, including about 14 in Chicopee and 71 in Hadley, growing sweet corn, tomatoes, pumpkins, squash, cucumbers and string beans.

The Vegas, who seek unspecified damages, maintain that McKinstry's failure to rehire them resulted in lost wages and lost pay used to calculate unemployment and Social Security benefits.

Manuel Vega was one of seven farm workers who sued Nourse Farms Inc. of Whately in U.S. District Court in a similar case in 1998, resulting in a settlement, which was sealed by the court.