FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 11, 2013
Workers file suit against the U.S. Department Of Labor in Fight for Just Wages
BALTIMORE, MD– Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, Inc., and allies filed a class action lawsuit in federal court in Pennsylvania today against the Department of Labor (DOL) to ensure that migrant workers receive fair payment of wages. This past spring DOL began to notify employers that they were required to pay market rate wages to workers with H-2B visas. DOL recently reversed its policy and decided that employers are allowed to pay migrant workers with H-2B visas wages below the market value for work performed in 2013. The lawsuit challenges this abrupt change in policy which affects more than 50,000 workers who came to the U.S. on H-2B visas to be employed in jobs in landscaping, construction, and other industries. The individual plaintiffs in this case worked in forestry and landscaping.
CDM filed this lawsuit with co-counsel Edward Tuddenham, Friends of Farmworkers, Inc., the Southern Poverty Law Center, Northwest Workers’ Justice Project, and Florida Legal Services, Inc.
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Media Contact:
Sarah Karpovich
(410) 783-0236; skarp@cdmigrante.org