Jackson, Miss. — On January 4, 2023, 13 Black farmworkers from the Mississippi Delta (clients of MCJ and TRLA), reached settlements in December with two Mississippi Delta Farming operations alleging that the farms paid white workers imported from South Africa more money than they paid the Black workers from the Delta and gave the white South Africans more hours to work.

One of the lawsuits was brought by eight workers for Pitts Farms, a business that grows cotton, soybean, and corn. The other was brought by five workers from Harris Russell Farms, a catfish-growing operation. Both farms are in Sunflower County.

According to the lawsuits, the businesses obtained visas for the white South African workers by falsely claiming to the U.S. Department of Labor that they would pay local workers as much as any foreign workers and would offer employment opportunities to local workers first. The case against Pitts Farms was featured in an article in the New York Times.

To preserve their privacy, the workers agreed with the farms that the amounts of the settlements would be kept confidential. But lawyers for the farm workers emphasized their hope that these settlements will send a message to other employers. 

“We are pleased that an agreement was reached to compensate our clients for the discrimination they suffered at these two farms,” said Amal Bouhabib, a lawyer with SMLS, a program of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA), who represented the workers. “But many other Delta farms are engaging in these unlawful practices and more suits will be coming against those who do not pay fair wages to the local workers.”  

“This particular form of discrimination is a recent manifestation of the age-old problem of exploitation of Black labor in America and particularly in the Delta,” said Rob McDuff, a lawyer for Mississipi Center for Justice (MCJ) who also represented the workers. “These settlements are an important step and we are going to keep moving forward in an effort to eradicate these abuses throughout the Delta.”

In addition to filing these lawsuits, the two organizations also contacted the U.S. Department of Labor about the persistence of these practices in the Delta. In response, U.S. Labor Secretary Marty Walsh visited the Delta on June 30 and two months later, nearly 30 Labor Department investigators fanned out across the Delta to talk to farm owners and workers about the problem.

Subsequently, the Department of Labor announced that it had recovered unpaid wages of $134,532 for 45 workers at 11 Delta farms and levied fines of $122,610 against those farms.  

Southern Migrant Legal Services, a project of Texas RioGrande Legal Aid (TRLA), provides free employment-related legal services to migrant farmworkers who work in Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Tennessee. For more information visit www.trla.org 

Contact: Julia Fourt, Public Relations Manager - Texas RioGrande Legal Aid, jfourt@trla.org