Immigrants: Landscaper exploited workers

Murfreesboro-based Outdoors Unlimited, accused of forced labor, lack of food

Mynor Chox was looking for a summer job during college break in his native Guatemala when a friend told him about a chance to earn some cash in Tennessee.

The money was good, the job as a landscape laborer required no experience and his employers would arrange for housing, transportation and a temporary work visa known as H2-B to allow him to work legally.

But after arriving in Murfreesboro last Spring, Chox, 24, claims he was forced to live in a trailer in a remote location with roughly 10 other workers, a “few small, dirty mattresses” and one working toilet. They were transported to and from work sites six days a week but had no way to get to a store to buy food. He and two other men claim they routinely worked 60 or more hours per week but were not paid for the hours they worked — or paid on a regular basis. When they were paid, their employer deducted $200 per month for housing and utilities. The allegations are spelled out in legal filings in federal court.

And in a cell phone video taken several weeks after taking the job, Chox captured The Commercial Appeal Saturday, April 15, 2017 a tense and profanity-filled confrontation with an unidentified landscaping company supervisor dropping him off at the end of the workday when Chox insists, first in Spanish and then English, that he is hungry and needs food and money.

“It’s not my problem,” the man said. “Figure it out.” “I need food,” Chox said. “I’m going to whip your a** if you don’t get out of this g**d ***** truck,” the man says before he forcefully grabs Chox, yanks him from the truck as Chox says repeatedly in Spanish, “don’t touch me.” The man appears to push him down on the gravel road beside it. As he drove away he yells: “you’re a dumb m ***** f ***** .”

Chox and two former co-workers, Jorge Alvarado and Julian Alvarado, have filed a federal lawsuit against the landscaping company, Murfreesborobased Outdoors Unlimited, accusing them of trafficking immigrants for the purpose of forced labor. They are also seeking wages they said they were denied when they worked for the company in May, June and July 2016.

An attorney for the company declined to comment saying he could not ethically speak about a pending case. Company owner Burke Skelton, who is named in the suit, did not return a message left at his office.

In its legal filings, the company has denied that the men were not paid for hours worked and disputed cell phone snapshots of timecards provided by Chox showing more hours worked than reflected in his paychecks.