Fails to Hire Domestic Workers
SALINAS, CA – Dozens of farm workers from the Monterey County area who applied for jobs with Jorge Castro Farms last month are yet to receive a job offer, even though the labor contractor received preliminary approval from U.S. DOL to fill the 150 positions it has available with foreign workers.
“I have been calling Jorge Castro Farms looking for a job, but I haven’t received any response,” said Lilia Uga, 44, who is a legal resident and mother of eight. “I’m desperate and frustrated. It’s urgent for me to find a job, so I can support my family.”
Official documents show Jorge Castro Farms was preliminarily approved for a temporary labor certification requesting 150 guest workers to cultivate and harvest strawberries in Salinas for the work period of March 1 through November 30 of this year.
In order to qualify for the H-2A or guest worker program, which is designed to fill domestic labor shortages on farms, an employer must prove it tried to hire U.S. workers first before the U.S. Labor Department clears the way for H-2A workers to come in for up to 10 months.
“Given the abundance of domestic workers available, this application should have never been processed and it certainly should not be given final approval,” said Erik Nicholson, National Vice President of the United Farm Workers. The UFW has documented at least 30 domestic workers who applied for work at Jorge Castro Farms and not a single worker had been offered a job.
The Office of Foreign Labor Certification approved the foreign temporary labor certification for processing despite the labor firm’s failure to show any evidence of U.S. labor shortage and including a number of provisions in the job order that violate state or federal laws.
“As part of the H-2A requirements, Jorge Castro Farms is required to provide H-2A workers with housing and to disclose the address of that housing in their application. Yet the address listed on their application is that of a commercial business that has no accommodations to house workers,” Nicholson said. “To add insult to injury, a housing inspection is required as a prerequisite for approval of an employer’s H-2A application. As of February 5, there is no record of any such inspection.”
Other violations include wages and working hours that guest workers would be subjected to once they arrived in the country.
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