Landscaper must pay $175K in back wages, penalties

A Gwinnett County landscaping company has been ordered to pay $175,000 in back wages and penalties after investigators uncovered multiple violations of guest-worker program rules.

Of the total amount fined, $136,971 in back wages will go to 110 migrant workers who have been underpaid by the company. The U.S. Department of Labor has also barred the Sugar Hillbased landscaper, Resendiz Pine Straw LLC, from participating in the H-2A temporary worker program for three years.

The agricultural guest worker program, known as H-2A, allows agricultural employers to hire temporary workers from outside the U.S. to address labor shortages.

Per H-2A program rules, employers are required to provide their workers housing, as well as cover the cost of workers’ daily meals and transportation between living quarters and worksites. But according to a Department of Labor press release, Resendiz did not reimburse workers for some of these costs, and illegally deducted time for breaks and lunches. The deductions resulted in the underpayment of wages.

Investigators within the department’s Wage and Hour Division, the agency responsible for H-2A enforcement, also found that the employer misrepresented the work location of migrant workers in its H-2A application. When work dried up in the Atlanta area, Resendiz sent some laborers nearly 600 miles away to do farm labor in Arcadia, Florida.

“By doing so, the employer engaged in cost-shifting and failed to provide workers at least three-quarters of the hours of work stated in the original job offer,” the news release reads. “Resendiz failed to uphold the terms of the H-2A contract regarding pay, duties and housing.”

The H-2A guest-worker visa program has been booming in Georgia as farmers struggle to find domestic sources of labor. According to the federal Office of Foreign Labor Certification, Georgia had 27,614 H-2A positions certified in fiscal year 2020, up from roughly 5,500 in fiscal year 2010. Georgia is second only to Florida for most H-2A workers in the nation. The majority of foreign workers come from Mexico and Central America.