California labor regulators this week offered to “negotiate” lower fines for three Morgan Hill farmers who were stuck more than a year ago with hefty penalties for what area farming and legal advocates considered minor violations, according to one of the legal advocates.
Janelle Orsi of the Sustainable Economies Law Center, which has supported the three growers since they were cited, said Wednesday that a manager from the California Bureau of Field Enforcement contacted her to negotiate to lower the fines.
“He said the (Department of Labor Standards Enforcement) has been giving the cases a good deal of attention and they would like to negotiate lower fines for all three farmers,” Orsi said.
Last week the Times reported that the three farmers – Xay Duc Hoang, Fanny Tam and Siu Wah Mok – have spent the last year seeking some reprieve from the fines for labor violations which would have siphoned away significant portions of the farmers’ incomes.
The farmers grow Chinese vegetables, a crop category which generates about $4 million per year countywide, according to the 2013 Santa Clara County crop report.
Plus the growers, who speak little or no English, felt the state inspectors didn’t make an adequate effort to ensure the growers understood their requirements, nor to understand certain aspects’ of the growers’ operations.
The violations were mostly related to incomplete or incorrect information on their wage statements for their employees. Local farming and legal advocates said the violations did not harm anyone, and the growers simply made “honest mistakes.”
In Hoang’s case, for example, regulators imposed a fine of $9,000 for his cited violations. His household income is about $55,000. Mok was imposed a fine of $3,000, and his income is about $13,000.
Legal advocates also suggested the citations against all three farmers were even illegal, as they cited the wrong labor code they allegedly violated.
Last week Hoang, represented by an area attorney offering his services pro bono, filed an appeal to his fine in the local district court, Orsi said.
“I’m not sure what the DLSE is considering as far as offering to lower the fines,” Orsi said. “We believe the farmers should not have to pay fines at all, given the mistakes and problems with the cases. At the very least, I do not think any of the farmers should have to pay more than $250 each, since that is the statutory fine that can be imposed per violation.”
Orsi has been on labor regulators’ case about the fines constantly in recent weeks. She wrote a letter to Labor Commissioner Julie Su last month listing the many ways she thinks the citations and fines are misguided and excessive, and contacted Su’s office every day for a week before an appeal was filed on behalf of Hoang.
Su could not be contacted by press time.
