Georgia based Vidalia onion producer Bland Farms Production and Packing will pay nearly $1.5 million in back wages and liquidated damages after the U.S. Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division found the employer violated the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA).
According to the Department of Labor, Bland failed to pay overtime to about 460 employees over the span of six years. Under the FLSA, employers must pay workers time-and-a-half when they exceed 40 hours in a work week. The overtime rule exempts company workers involved in primary agriculture, the act of growing product; or secondary agriculture, the act of processing, and packaging the product grown by that company.
Bland violated that rule when it failed to pay overtime wages to packing-shed employees involved in the processing and packaging of onions grown by other farmers who were contracted with the company to grow onions for sale to Bland. The contract farmers planted and grew the onions only to be packed and sold by Bland.
The court also found that Bland did not act in good faith in continuing to fail to pay overtime after the Department filed its complaint and awarded over $500,000 in liquidated damages to workers from the time of the lawsuit in 2014 to the present.
Source: bizjournals.com
