[apoliticalone]

Sorry no sympathy from me.. Farmers looking for the cheapest immigrant labor that taxpayers always end up subsidizing (cotton picking ring a bell?) need to use mechanized pickers or pay a wage that Americans will accept. I don’t accept that farmers should bring in poverty that the rest of us must subsidize.

[muawiyah]

Hmm, so the farmer's position is 'So, sue us" (instead).

Interesting way to do business when all you have to do is keep track of the hours worked and how much was paid.

[eyeamok]

If the Politicians and Elected leaders in Oregon were truly “Outraged” at these heavy handed gestapo tactics, they would have had the State Police Arrest and Jail every last one of these folks from the various Federal Agencies taking part in this shakedown, for their ADMITTED FELONY EXTORTION.

[mountainlion]

Farmers need to set up shell corperationts saying they are illegal aliens so as to get out of paying taxes and getting subsidies. The big corporate “farms’ should not be the only ones to get the subsidies. Either all farms should be subsided or none should. The government war on family framers and small business must be overcome.

[tired&retired]

I don’t think you folks are reading this completely prior to posting your comments. For the most part, they did have wage and hour documents. The government challenged the validity of them based upon their stupid unbased assumptions.

The farmers were paying correctly.

I’ve run into this in wage and hour audits with L&I on piece rate work. They assume everyone is lazy and can’t make rate!

[sima_yi]

...said the signed consent judgments may limit his clients' appeal options.

Is an agreement signed under duress enforceable?

[Seattle Conservative]

Bray - FYI in case you haven’t seen this.

[txrefugee]

Even though they are expensive, buy the mechanical pickers. They are cheaper than being extorted by the Labor Dept. goons who can put you out of business.

Of course, that means the human pickers will be going on welfare, but this government wants as many people dependent on Big Government as possible.

[The Working Man]

Greg Ditchen, the farm owner, said he’s never been in trouble before and may use only mechanized harvesters in the future.

“It’s not the labor,” he said, “it’s the people who come out and tell us we’re doing wrong.”

---

So in the future to avoid these heavy-handed tactics Farmers will be employing no “migrant labor”.

Where I currently live, the only “short-term labor I see farmers hiring is for the tobacco crops, which are by their nature very labor intensive.

On the other hand most of the other farmers which are predominantly Amish only use Family labor and machinery. And by family I don’t mean just their own children I mean Brothers and Cousins etc. If an “English” is hired it’s because they are well known to the farmer and are very trustworthy.