Feds say Georgia company favored foreign workers

ATLANTA - Federal authorities say a Georgia agricultural company was favoring foreign workers over American employees.

The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission said in a June 20 filing that Hamilton Growers of Norman Park, Ga. was engaging "in a pattern or practice of regularly denying work hours and assigning less favorable assignments to U.S. workers" in favor of laborers from the government's agricultural guest worker program, known as H-2A.

It also said there's evidence the company engaged in a pattern of "discharging U.S. workers and replacing them with H-2A guestworkers."

The complaint was filed on behalf of about 40 American employees who said they were assigned fewer hours and made less money than counterparts from outside the U.S. It said some were eventually fired because of their race.

The company countered in documents that the employees violated attendance rules, loitered and resisted work. It also said all employees are guaranteed the same wages, but some earn more because they work faster.

Hamilton Growers officials declined to comment when reached Friday.

Leah Lotto represented the workers in the legal dispute. She said the government's findings "demonstrate the lengths to which growers will go to avoid hiring a U.S. work force in favor of more easily exploitable H-2A workers."

The commission's findings urged both sides to broker a settlement or face a court-ordered alternative.