(Ezekiel Loseke, Headline USA) A Georgia farm used unfair hiring practices that discriminated against Americans on behalf of migrant workers.
The farm is wholesale plant nursery in Greensboro, Georgia, and is owned by Pure Beauty Farm Inc., a Miami based company, reported Breitbart News.
Pure Beauty Farm Inc. actively discriminated against American workers with their hiring processes, according to a report by the Department of Labor.
Pure Beauty Farm Inc. “Gave preferential treatment to H-2A program workers by requiring U.S. applicants to have certain nursery work experience and to provide references, steps not required for foreign workers,” the report reads.
“The employer rejected 29 U.S. applicants as a result, including several who previously performed the same job for Pure Beauty.”
This practice is unfortunately common, according to Wage and Hour Division Director Steven Salazar.
“The federal H-2A program exists to help employers fill jobs in the agricultural industry when they can’t find U.S. workers,” he explained. “Too often, our investigators discover violations and abuses, and find U.S. workers have been illegally bypassed in the recruitment and hiring process.”
The H-2A visa program allows American agricultural companies to outsource their agricultural jobs to foreign workers who can stay for up to three years and bring their families over with H4 visas, according to Breitbart News.
The repetitive and systemic abuse of the H-2A may be seen in a lawsuit filed by black Americans last year.
In that case, six black farm workers alleged that their employer, Pitts Farms, used the H-2A visa program to bring in South African workers to do the same work as they did.
The lawsuit said the farm began bringing in white workers from South Africa in 2014, using a placement firm to hire seasonal labor. It also alleged that from 2014 to 2020, the farm did not make the same effort to recruit U.S. workers as it did to hire immigrants.
