Hoping this can be passed around in Treasure Beach, it was taken from the Jamaica Gleaner.

Cane cutters sought for Florida suit
published: Friday | August 5, 2005

Ross Sheil, Staff Reporter


A sugar cane farmer tends to the crop at Monymusk, Clarendon, on June 28, 2005. - RUDOLPH BROWN/CHIEF PHOTOGRAPHER

A FLORIDA-BASED legal aid organisation is trying to contact nearly 2,000 Jamaican men who worked as cane cutters in Florida between the years 1987 and 1993. The men are eligible to join a lawsuit to recover an estimated US$10 million ($624,400,000) in unpaid wages from their employer Osceola Farms.

Gregory Schell, a lawyer at the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project, believes the men may be eligible to claim up to US$30,000 ($1,867,200) including interest. However, he urges them to claim promptly as from September 1 the value of their claim will diminish with each day that passes.

"For years they were underpaid as the company routinely altered the time sheets and pressured the time keepers, many of whom were Jamaican, to acquiesce. This persisted because they did not want to lose their jobs. However, with mechanisation, there were no jobs to be lost so workers started coming forward and the case started in 1989," Mr. Schell recently told The Gleaner.

MANIPULATED TIME SHEETS

The situation, explained Mr. Schell, arose because although workers were paid fortnightly by the volume of cane cut, they were also guaranteed a minimum wage of about US$600 provided they worked 120 hours during that period. However, the lawsuit contends the company manipulated the time sheets to avoid having to pay the guaranteed US$600.

"The workers were probably paid 50 or 70 per cent of what they were owed and the slower workers who cut less cane were the ones who had their times altered the most," claimed Mr. Schell.

However, Gaston Cantens, vice-president of Corporate Relations at Florida Crystals, which owns Osceola Farms, dismissed the claims. He said that three similar cases, including two against his company, had been previously filed on behalf of workers and lost.

"I guess they are just fishing for more plaintiffs," said Mr. Cantens of the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project's attempts to contact workers. "Based on history they won't be able to prove the case because the company didn't do anything wrong."

"The decision to mechanise the company (and cut jobs) came about partly because of the lawsuits," added Mr. Cantens. A previous case against the Florida Crystal is being adapted into a movie, 'The Sugar Kings', to be directed by Jodie Foster for Universal Pictures.

Mr. Schell said a form, together with a letter, was sent to all of the addresses registered for the men during the last ten years. These are to be completed and returned to the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project. Those who do not receive the letter and form can instead contact:

Migrant Farm Worker Justice Project, 508 Lucerne Avenue, Lake Worth, Florida 33460. Telephone: (561) 582-3921.

Thank you Canada. I have printed this out and will put it up at the post office.

Big Up to the Migrant Farm Worker Justice Project. I hope the people that busted their butts for the $$ get whats owed them! Wouldn't $30,000 US be nice !

I hope they look in to the treatment of farm workers in Canada as well. (I have heard some things from Jamaicans who have gone to Canada to work)

Thanks Rebecca,I know I can always count on you to help.