Bushel Boy to Pay $200K for Unpaid Overtime
Owatonna-based Bushel Boy Farms must give nearly $200,000 in back wages and damages to 94 workers for not providing proper overtime pay, the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry (DLI) announced Monday.
The workers in question were supplied by Arizona-based farm labor contractor Oro Valley Ag Services LLC. They were domestic migrant and H-2A visa workers, according to the department. During an audit period spanning Aug. 12, 2020, to Aug. 12, 2022, state investigators found that the workers “routinely worked in excess of 48 hours per workweek” at Bushel Boy’s Owatonna greenhouse facilities.
Over that time period, Bushel Boy and Oro failed to pay the workers “one and one-half times their regular rate of pay for all hours worked in excess of 48 hours in a workweek,” DLI said in a consent order.
Bushel Boy grows tomatoes, cucumbers, and strawberries in its greenhouses.
A week ago, Bushel Boy entered into the consent order with DLI which requires the company to pay $97,242.84 in back wages and an additional $97,242.84 in liquidated damages for the 94 workers.
The department also assessed a $47,000 fee that “will be stayed if Bushel Boy refrains from violating certain labor laws within three years of the consent order.”
“Employers in Minnesota are legally responsible for paying agricultural workers overtime wages if they work more than 48 hours in a workweek, with limited exceptions” DLI commissioner Nicole Blissenbach said in a news release. “The department appreciates Bushel Boy’s willingness to quickly resolve this matter by agreeing to pay back wages and liquidated damages to the impacted employees.”
The release noted that ag workers have been entitled to overtime wages under Minnesota law since 1974.
In a statement, a Bushel Boy spokesperson said that the company has since terminated its partnership with Oro Valley Ag Services. The company also has “conducted a thorough, internal review of our labor management processes and standards to ensure this doesn’t happen again.”
“When we were notified by the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry that Oro Valley Ag Services, a contractor we had hired to provide additional farm labor, had not properly paid overtime wages, we worked directly with the Minnesota Department of Labor and Industry to remedy the situation and are retroactively compensating the employees impacted,” the spokesperson said.
