Freedom Folks

Saturday, February 03, 2007

Be Our Guest!

Source: moultrieobserver

Yet another example of "jobs Americans won't do?"
ELLENTON -- The U.S. Court of Appeals 11th Circuit Thursday upheld a decision from the U.S. Justice Department that a Colquitt County farmer did not discriminate against 17 Puerto Rican farmworkers in favor of Mexican labor. The plaintiffs had traveled from Puerto Rico to Georgia in 2003 to work for Booth Farms under a contract approved by the U.S. Department of Labor. They arrived a few days after a group of federal H2A program workers from Mexico. Producer Larry Booth, of Ellenton, had maintained that some of the citizen workers (Puerto Rico is a territory of the United States) were slow pickers and didn't pick enough to earn the equivalent piece rate of $7.49 an hour, the Adverse Effect Wage Rate at the time, so he fired them citing economic reasons. The plaintiffs complained that no Mexican H2A workers who didn't work up to Booth's standard weren't fired and subsequently filed a discrimination suit.
How nice.

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