Happy New Year! We are back for the first episode of the new year with our favorite former DOL investigator, Warren Williams! Learn what the blooming onion was and why the DOL doesn't like them.
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**The information provided on this podcast does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice; instead, all information, content, and materials available are for general informational purposes only. Listeners of this podcast should contact their attorney to obtain advice with respect to any particular legal matter. No reader, user, or browser of this site should act or refrain from acting on the basis of information on this site without first seeking legal advice from counsel in the relevant jurisdiction. Only your individual attorney can provide assurances that the information contained herein – and your interpretation of it – is applicable or appropriate to your particular situation. Use of, and access to, this podcast or any of the links or resources contained within the description do not create an attorney-client relationship between the listener and Kyle Farmer. **
Produced & Edited By: Drew Tattam
Happy New Year! We are back for the first episode of the new year with our favorite former DOL investigator, Warren Williams! Learn what the blooming onion was and why the DOL doesn't like them.
If you're interested in talking with one of our Business Relationship Developers about solving your business labor needs, click the link and fill out your contact information. We will get back to you shortly!
Sign up for our free webinars using the links below:
Send an email to media@farmerlawpc.com if you'd like to be featured in an episode, if you have a question Kyle can answer, or if you'd like to purchase an advertisement on the podcast.
Follow Kyle Farmer on LinkedIn, here.
Subscribe to our monthly Immigration Insider Newsletter, here.
**The information provided on this podcast does not, and is not intended to, constitute legal advice; instead, all information, content, and materials available are for general informational purposes only. Listeners of this podcast should contact their attorney to obtain advice with respect to any particular legal matter. No reader, user, or browser of this site should act or refrain from acting on the basis of information on this site without first seeking legal advice from counsel in the relevant jurisdiction. Only your individual attorney can provide assurances that the information contained herein – and your interpretation of it – is applicable or appropriate to your particular situation. Use of, and access to, this podcast or any of the links or resources contained within the description do not create an attorney-client relationship between the listener and Kyle Farmer. **
Produced & Edited By: Drew Tattam
Hey everyone. Welcome back and happy Wednesday. Today we're sitting down with Warren Williams again, a former Department of Labor investigator. Warren has extensive knowledge on Visa programs that we focus on here at Farmer Law PC. Uh, so welcome Warren again, and thank you for making the time to join us again.
I know that we had a lot of material we covered last time, but uh, I know that we're, there's gonna be more that we can get you this time.
Oh, sure, sure. Appreciate it. Thanks. And, uh, good morning, everybody. Um, greetings from South Georgia on a. Sunny day, supposed to be 80 degrees to today, which is great. Um, yeah, that's weird.
It's gonna be 80 here too. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm glad I was in an Atlanta this weekend. It was a little bit rough, but It's okay.
Hey y'all, this is the immigration guy with Kyle Farmer.
Alright, cool. Well, let's pick up where we left off last time. I don't think that we got into falsified documents, which is. A fun one. Uh, and so can you, have there been times where you've seen or noticed falsified documents, uh, during a Department of Labor investigation? And what's your advice generally to people whenever they're tempted to provide such documents?
Well, the, the most I've seen like recently with these. The blooming onion thing that happened with the indictment for Blooming Onion. What, what we saw in the past over timeframe was, what was the Blooming Onion thing? Oh, the blooming onion was, uh, A set of investigations that happened with a, a large indictment here in, in, uh, middle Georgia area with a lot of, I I'm gonna say farm labor contractors and some farmers and some agents and or a couple CPAs too, that, um, there was a high volume of trafficking going on and it was mainly linked to people using the H-2A program, uh, to do this trafficking with the, uh, workers.
Uh, there was. Trafficking, there was, uh, abuse, there was, uh, sex trafficking. Uh, any, anything you can think of as far as illegal action that was going on, um, 200 million operations, that was, that was quite substantial.
This is actually a really wild story, uh, and, and anyone that is listening and, and has some time, Google this story just to read about it cuz it is, you know, it, it's like all of it.
I, I love the h a program. I think it's a great program. Our country needs it badly, right? Um, but what these guys did is the thing that everyone else uses as the strawman argument for why this program bad. because there are people that abuse it. Mm-hmm., and you know, that these guys did exactly that, and they went through such extensive links to falsify documents.
I think that they, I, if I remember correctly, over the course of the investigation, they did y'all, I think there was a certain situation where they, they didn't even, uh, they weren't working. The people in agriculture, they would work 'em in. Mm.
Everything, right? Yeah. Yeah. They were doing, uh, construction work, um, nail salons, um, cooking and kitchens.
They just had 'em trafficked, you know, wherever they would do. So, one, one thing we noticed was that we were getting a significant amount of job orders in the area, and it was always the same number of workers. It was either 50 or 75. And then one, one thing that people had to be aware of is that, like when you sign a, uh, a statement of.
For somebody to do some work. This is where somebody can easily, with today's technology, falsify your information and they can just Google a farm and who knows where and, and, and Google it, look and see, hey, yeah, that looks like farmland. Let's use that address. Let's put the name on it. Let's look the name up in the tax record.
Um, and it’s a, it's a legit person if it's checked, but when we would go out and talk to that particular person about their land, they would say, we know nothing. Um, that's not my signature on the document. Um, and, and that, that was a tip off for us to start noticing that these somebody's falsifying and trafficking the workers.
That's, yeah.
Which is just, that's so crazy to me. But that's also, you know, uh, some people might, some criticism, some people might say is, well, how did Chicago National Processing Center not know that? Well, it's because Chicago National Proxy Center is not out there investigating people. It's not that they did anything wrong, it's just they were, they saw the application on the face of the application looks good.
Right. But then whenever you guys got involved is where it's like, oh shoot, this is a, this is serious thing on.
Yeah. And then, and it would be, um, I mean, you have a town where a little small city where you, you bring a hundred workers to that town, and it's almost like, you tripled the population of the city.
Yeah. And if all of a sudden you, you bring a hundred workers in the city that night, everybody knows they're staying in certain housing and so forth. But the next day, all of those workers are gone. Um, and then the, the, the, the crew leader usually can't explain, oh, they're just up and left in the middle of the night.
And I'm just like, nah, we don't think that's going on. So, with the falsification, one thing we also., it's the trafficking part that kind of gives it away. And you see people, if you got a hundred workers, we need to see a hundred workers. Basically. When, when I was doing investigations, one thing you would notice on the payroll is that you might have 60 workers for, for an extended period of time.
You might have all a hundred on the payroll, then it drops off to 60, might drop down the 20, and then, but you're not noticing any kind of, uh, information being sent to Chicago for people absconding. So, you ask where, where are these workers? And they basically have, um, how can I call it? I will say they are selling them.
Yeah. To the highest bidder to use the workers and say, okay, well you can use 20 for whatever you need 'em, but on. March the sixth, they have to go back. So, I need 'em back, but so I'm gonna charge you a dollar for every hour they work and a dollar for each worker. And then you have to pay me that and then you can use the worker.
But then when it's time for them to go back, I need you to return 'em back to me. So that was, that was one thing that was tipping us off. And then you notice a hundred people on a payroll one week, 60 to next. and then you have, you know, an extended period of so many people missing and then all of a sudden, the payroll grows again.
So, you're wondering, okay, where were these people going in a month? Well, you look at the timeframe and you say, okay, well during that timeframe was a little bit slow. We might have had some bad weather or whatever, and they had to do something with the workers to try to keep them employed so they don't get.
Gig on the three-quarter guarantee and those things we'll look at for that. Uh, let's see, what else Kyle? Um, I just want, I wanna emphasize one thing that you've mentioned a second ago, so people are familiar with what you're talking about that. So, one thing that you mentioned that kind of tipped tips you guys off was the failure to submit absconder reports or separation reports, right.
Uh, to the Department of Labor and USCIS and just so people are aware of what that requirement. Whenever you bring in H-2A, this actually applies to H-2B as well, visa workers. And let's say that you fire 'em. Well, if you fire 'em, you have to report 'em to the department or report to the firing, to the Department of Labor and the Department of Homeland Security within 48 hours.
This also applies to corresponding US workers, by the way. Yes. And that's something that almost no one knows, and no one does, is that this also applies corresponding US workers. Workers. Uh, another circumstance that happens that I think. Warren you've probably seen a million times is, uh, well, the worker comes in and then they just up and leave in the middle of the night.
We have no idea where they went. Uh, well, and when that circumstance happens, the employer. has to report the abscond, uh, within 48 hours after the fifth day of not showing, uh, up to the work site without authorization. So that's correct. Yeah. So, I, I appreciate you mentioning the absconder reports cuz a lot of people just don't know that's a requirement.
And the other thing that can be kind of confusing is in terms of timeline. Like when am I actually reporting people and the, the regulations say, uh, if I remember correctly, I know for the H-2B regulations, they say if it's prior, To the end date of the certification, the actual ending of the job order, uh, and this, and I would assume that the H-2As say the same.
I can't remember off the top of my head though. Uh, and that's an important thing to note because let's say that your job, let's say your workers meet your three-quarter guarantee, uh, and then they, but they still leave a month early. They hit the three-quarter guarantee, but they leave a month early because of weather conditions or something like.
Well, you still have an o an obligation to either, or actually to potentially both. Uh mm-hmm., cancel the job order. Mm-hmm. make sure the Department of Labor knows that you're ending the job early. And then also you may have to report the separation of the workers because it's prior to the expiration of the job order and almost no one does that.
Right. Exactly. And that's a good, um, that's a great best practice. So everybody knows to, uh, report those people. , make sure if you, if you do stop your contract, then, then it's properly recorded and, and, uh, all the information is taken care of because, um, even, even with, and, um, I might be off the subject a little bit, but even if you have a, a situation where you have the, uh, the, the act of God situation where there's a bad storm or bad weather, uh, the, the farmer or the Fineable contractor still responsible for the three quarter guarantee until they get notification from.
That you have been approved for your act of God, uh, exemption. So, you don't have that kind of particular problem. So it's just a lot of, uh, making sure that your documentation is correct and, and, and those little small things like that can, can cause major problems when it's time to do. , uh, like previously when I was doing investigations, if you don't report that there's a possible, and as we always talk about Kyle, with the assessment of a CMP, if you don't do it, and if you, the first time I, I think they, you know, we used to give you a pass.
Yeah. But the second time you don't get a pass. Right. And the second time would be a, a civil, if you, if you didn't report 30 people in a second investigation, well, you could be responsible for three quarter guarantees on those people and a civil money penalty. Um, for not reporting. So, it's, it's kind of a double-edged sword on that part.
So, you just wanna make sure that you, you have a good system in place where you can report Yeah.
And document that. That's a great point. And I, the other thing that people need to realize is, is it is for their own good, not only from the CMP perspective, what you're a hundred percent right about that.
Uh, and from the compliance perspective, you're a hundred percent right about that. But it also makes it clear that you're not. Obligated to fulfill the three-quarter guarantee. Mm-hmm. if the person's separated prior to the completion of the work contract. Right. And so that, which, that, you know, in, in an audit, like let's say that you're auditing someone, and you see that this one worker only had 250 hours, but you don't see a separation report.
And this is a company that has 500 workers. They might not remember that that person just up and left. They might not remember why. Uh, and so that's another reason why it's important to have those, because it's very clear in an audit. Hey, this separation is, uh, is happened at this point. Three quarter guarantee liability needs to stop accruing at this point.
Mm-hmm. And so, it's another important reason to do it, but people just don't do it. It
is, it is, it's, it's real important as far as with that. With that three-quarter guarantee because it's, it's constantly running. And if you, and you mentioned like 250 hours. So, one, one thing we would do with three quarter guarantees, and I don't wanna try to stay on topic, Kyle, I'm gonna work on it.
Oh, no, no. This is exactly what people, uh, I think need to hear. But sorry, Warren, really quick. I want to just, before you go into this, I want to explain what the three-quarter guarantee is for people. I just realized that I don't think we've done that yet. Uh, so the three-quarter guarantee from the H-2A program is just three quarters of the hours that are offered on the job order. So, if you had a 10-month job order and it's 40 hours a week, it would basically be three quarters of those working days over the course of that job order. Three quarter of those hours is what you're guaranteeing the workers.
All right. Sorry Warren, you can. Oh, no. Oh no. So, when you, when you mentioned the, uh, payroll and then they may be a worker on the payroll that has 250 hours, so depending on how long the contract is and the, and the guaranteed number of hours that the person's supposed to have. When I do, when I did an investigation, you, we would ask the employer for an hour.
Statement for each particular employee at the end of the year. Um, and, and some people get confused at the point that they look at the money and say, well, based on the money I paid them. what they were supposed to be paid, and it's not really a money situation, it's an hour situation. So, they, they may have made enough money based on the contract, but did they make enough hours on the contract?
So, when we, I would ask 'em for a three quarter or end of year summary as far as that goes. To see how many hours of each particular employee worked and you, you already know what a three-quarter guarantee is. So, when you're going through the payroll and somebody was supposed to work 700 hours to meet the three-quarter and you can look through the payroll and see 500, 600, 450, whatever though, those are red flags.
So, we automatically wanted to know what's going on with that particular employee. How come they didn't reach the 700 thresholds? And if you have a lot of them, once again, that can, that can lead to something as far. The trafficking parts. So, they, they may have left for a month, and when you let them go, nobody reported back to you what those hours were.
So, you could. Maybe correctly put it in the, in the record that they were working somewhere. So those, those kinds of things tip us off as far as, uh, when you look at the three-quarter guarantee, um, it's, it's simple. I hate to say it's really simple mathematics when you look at the payroll to see exactly what's going on.
But then if you, you talk to the employees when you did the investigation and the interviews and they said, no, we didn't, we didn't work for three weeks. And, and you can look at the payroll and you see hours. Offered in the payroll. So, one, one thing I think folks also have to understand is that just because you think you can offer the hour, is the hour work actually being able to be worked?
Um, you, you can't, you can't offer somebody to work when they absconded. So, you, you can't put that kind of information in if they, if they're out sick. You gotta put something on the paperwork saying they were sick. We didn't work that day. Arraigned, uh, we only worked a half a day. Um, that there's understanding as far as when you look at the payroll records to see what's going on with the record.
And I always tell the employer the records, tell your story for your business. So, if you, if you don't have good records, um, it's, it's, it could set you up for a long, a long haul with wage out investigators being in your business. And that was just, as far as to segue into the payroll, to look at the hours, to look at the records, to see what hours are on the record, please make sure you, you, uh, document the hours offered along with the hours worked.
Um, and, and also you have to remember that if you're, if you're daily allowed hours that you want to, the workers to work is nine hours and., everybody has worked nine hours, but you want to continue working. The employee only has to work what's on the guaranteed day for that particular amount. If everybody else wants to work 12 hours, they can go ahead and work 12 in the, in the, in the farmer or the farmer.
The contractor can count those hours later towards three quarter guarantees, but there has to be an understanding as far as if., you may want 'em to work 12, but if you're only offering nine on your contract for that particular day, that is all the workers have to work. Um, and then they, they can't be pressured to work 12 hours a day just because production is down, and we need to keep moving.
So, so that's a, that's something that's it that I appreciate you bringing that up too, uh, because this is something that also people just don't understand is that when you're calculating the three-quarter guarantee, it's not based off of hours worked, it's based off of. Offered. Mm-hmm. and people very oftentimes don't understand the distinction between those two things, which, uh, I think that you just did a great job of highlighting the difference between those two things where you said you can continue to offer more hours, uh, and the workers can work those hours beyond the nine that you offered.
Mm-hmm. on, on the job order for a 12-hour day and, and so, which I think is very helpful. Now, what happens, let's say hypothetically. That worker refuses the three additional hours that you've mentioned. So, he worked all nine that you have on the job order, uh, and then you're offering him three more hours, but he says, no, I don't want those.
I'm tired. I'm gonna go home. Can you count those three additional hours? He didn't work towards the three-quarter guarantee.
Uh, we wouldn't count 'em. Yeah. Um, because that, that's based on the, on that contract. Uh, honestly, usually, uh, peer. Uh, determines that that person's gonna go ahead and work anyway because you might be the only person sitting on the bus waiting for it to go back Yeah.
To the, uh, to the building 50 miles away. So, if you're gonna sit on the bus for three or four hours waiting, you, you might as well get paid for it.
Yeah. And, but you would count the hours. For those work or, or would you, would you count the hours for the workers that did choose to work the additional time?
Yes, that's right. And so, this is, this is something that's confusing to people because you can offer hours and if the employee rejects those hours, they count towards their three-quarter guarantee. So long as it is within the timeframe, disclose on the job order. If it's outside of that, they don't count unless the worker chooses to work them.
So, it's a, mm-hmm. it, it is, it’s simple math, but it has so many intricacies in the rule that people really don't, people don't understand it. Uh, which is hard to blame him. I mean, that's, That's
a complicated one. It is, it is. And I, and I think as you were, we were mentioning the records. Um, as far as falsifying records, uh, one, one thing I've seen also is, is when people use catering services. And you, and you use a catering service and you, uh, you just say, hey, everybody ate three meals a day. And you start deducting that from the employee's, uh, pay. And then once, once you do, of course there's a meal thing, you know, it's, it's so much what, what is actually a meal and what's a high caloric and so forth.
Um, and then once you talk to the inter, the interview the employees, and they said, no, we are only. We only get lunch. Everything else is on us. We go to the, to the store and get our own food. We go to Burger King, get a burger or something like that. And, but you look at the payroll and you see the total subsistence deduction from, from the worker's pay and that that's a, a.
That's, once again, that's a per worker c m p and a per worker violation. So, you, you're gonna have a double edge on that. You're gonna have to pay the workers back. Plus, you could be, you know, CMP again for that particular, uh, falsifying. So, when it comes down, when it comes to anything dealing with their wages, and I think we discussed this last time, that can always relate.
That can always revert back to a. Worker violation, and you just really want to be careful when you could be in a situation where you're dealing with per worker violations. Um, I haven't looked at the list in a, in a while, Kyle, but there, there are quite a few per worker. Violations as part, as part of H-2A?
Yeah. Uh, anything with transportation, housing, and wages could be a per worker violation.
Yeah. The place I see at Moses is with wages, like if they're mm-hmm., if there's anything wage wise, they're gonna try to do a per worker. Uh, violation. Which meals usually fall in that, like usually mm-hmm. or, and same with housing.
Like if the employer was charging the workers for housing, for example. Uh, anything that impacts their wages, that's, it's, it's usually on a per worker violation. But, uh, Warren, one of another things. Oftentimes confuses people. I get this question all the time. I figured it's gonna be a fun one for you to answer just as it's for me.
So, let's say that my job order says that I work Monday through FRI or Monday through Saturday, and my job order also says I'll provide three meals a day. Do I have to provide meals on Sunday when we're not working?
Most people do. Yeah. Um, but that's not a requirement. But then I see them also. Um, that's why the documentation has to be.
Good as far as for that. Cause if they're not working, then you're still feeding them three squares. Cause a lot of people wanna make that seven-day deduction on that. I guess it's $14 now. Some change. Yeah. And you, it, it shows up in the payroll. Another thing that shows up in the payroll, if it's uh, if it's fluctuating, um, usually if, if everybody's eating, um, because I know one farmer here where I'm at, they, they do breakfast, lunch, and.
Uh, all every day. So, when you look in the payroll, you see everybody's pretty much getting charged the same amount every week. But if you look at the payroll and you see fluctuations in people's meal charges, then, then that's kind of a red flag as far as, I mean, what's going on with the meal charge? Um, so, you know, uh, what is, what, who's doing the catering?
How much are they charging? Uh, how are you documenting that? How are you keeping up with. How are you paying that person and are they making a profit off of the employees based on that, when you look at that, the, uh, the catering contract. Yeah. And you know, I've, uh, so I, I've had Department of Labor investigators before, historically, which, you know, did, department of Labor investigators are not necessarily consistent on all rules from like one location to another.
I mean, there's, there's just so many of them. It's just you, you can't be, I've had Department of Labor investigators tell me that you do have to provide meals on Sunday as well, and they say, because they, they still have to eat on Sundays. And I was like, that's interesting. Okay. I mean, and, and I understand it like the, the job order specifically says provide three meals a day, Sundays a day.
It's like, okay. No. I mean, I guess. Technically I can see that argument, but yeah. I mean, I, I can see this one going either way. So, I think it's, that's kind of interesting.
So, it's probably beneficial for them to just go ahead and do the meal. Yeah. Um, if they put it in the job water. Yeah. Cause that, um, the, the language is the catch.
And if it says I'm gonna provide a meal per day, then somebody will say, okay, well Sunday is a day. How come you didn't feed 'em? Uh, and, and just to sit there and have a hassle and, and you can pretty much move on. If it's a situation where the, where they, they do their own cooking and all that kind of stuff.
Usually I, I, I've never heard of it. Cause a lot of people have their own cooking facilities. Yeah. Um, the, the thing with the catering is just kind of coming into play because a lot of people are starting to. The hotels and motels and stuff, and nobody has a way to cook and so forth there. So, uh, people are jumping on the bandwagon with the catering, but it, it is not above me as an investigator to ask the catering person for their, I wanna see the contract.
Yeah, I wanna see the contract with the grower, with the fine labor contractor. And we, we want to see the menu. We wanna see the, uh, uh, the prices and, and, and see exactly what's going on that. So, I know that was, that was probably one of the questions as far as do we, uh, look at it? Yeah, I looked at all of that kind of stuff because you want to see.
Um, somebody could be complaining about meals. Um, I believe one of the questions was, is it a red flag about the meals? User doesn't come and say, uh, when I was working, you, you get a, a complaint, say, hey, we're not getting meals. User doesn't come into that kind of situation. That's something you kind of fall into.
And find out as you're doing the investigation that, hey, are you getting three meals a day? How much are they charging you? You know, oh, I'm getting, I'm paying $20 for lunch. Then we have to look at that. But usually I've, I've never had a complaint with somebody. The single thing in the complaint was, hey, we're paying $30 to eat a day, and it's only $14.
It's usually part of another complaint that's, Dealing with the wages or some type of, uh, mistreatment and, and so forth. Yeah. So that's what I've seen.
Yeah, no, definitely. What about this one? So, let's say that hypothetically the employer says they're gonna provide three meals a day. And so, they buy a, some sort of ability to cleanly cook for their workers at the work site, and the employer actually cooks for the workers.
And then gives 'em meals and they, they do all sorts of different meals. Cause what, what do you think about that? Uh hmm. Is it a certified kitchen for one thing? Uh, did the health department certify it? Is it meeting the standard of the health department to actually feed people, um, so we can make sure the health and safety is in place for the worker?
Uh, that would be the first thing I would look at to see, hey, is this place actually certified? Can you be cooking from it? Are you using proper utensils? You know, just everything like a, you would treat it like a restaurant kind of thing. As far as with. with the inspection at the health department, come and check it.
Did they give you a, uh, what is it, your certification, the serve food, uh, what's the date? You know, some people post things, and the certification might be last year's certification, but they might just say, oh yeah, here it is. You know, and as a glance, you're just keeping, since you got a lot to be doing as an investigator, you look at it.
You don't look at it, look at it to see, hey, this is expired, but you're still out here serving food to these workers. Plus, you, you do that part of it because you don't want somebody getting sick and the next thing you know, you have a, the whole camp is sick from what we say, food poisoning or something like that.
And then that's gonna be, that's gonna be a major issue for whoever's dealing with it. Because once again, that's, if, if you took out you., you know, a quarter of your workforce, then you, you're hampering yourself as far as dealing with your production. And then you, first, you gotta eradicate that. It's, it's almost as bad as the, the covid thing because we, we had complaints of people cooking for workers.
Uh, but what, what safety protocols were in place to make sure that person didn't have covid and they're coming in and actually cooking over the. Uh, for workers, and then you could, you could spread covid, you know, all around the camp just because one person bought it in, um, that was cooking. Um, not intentionally.
We know that's how it was, but you, you may have bought such things in, but we, we had a, I had a couple complaints about nobody was taking proper sanitary precautions when them. The, the people were coming in, catering, cooking the food, and Covid was going on. That's, yeah, that's definitely good information to have.
Everyone's always, cause the catering meals, thing's always such a pain in the butt. People are always trying to find ways to just make it more efficient. How can I do, and the other thing is, is that the, a lot of times the workers don't like the catered food because it's the same food every day. And so that's why I always try to get people in, can just get free and convenient kitchen facilities so the workers can prepare their own meals.
That way they can have whatever they. But obviously that's not always possible, but that is my general advice to people. Uh, you're gonna have happier workers, more compliant, and far more cost effective. So yeah, that was a, that was another thing too on that Kyle is, uh, not just the same food every day, but it wasn't ethnically correct food that they were, they were used to eating.
You know, uh, maybe they don't want pizza. Uh, maybe they want food that's home, home cooked type food that they're used to eating. So, you, you'll need to find the cooks that can cook the appropriate food or meal to, to give to somebody. Nobody doesn't, not everybody wants to run to the, to the buffet or something like that.
They, they may want the food that they're used to eating in there, in there, in, wherever country they come from. Yeah. To, to cook it. Um, to go from there and, and, and see exactly what's going on. beer is another question that's, that's totally different. That, that has nothing to do with the food. Uh, I don't, I don't think they have a, a preference on when they, when you see the thousands of beer cans sitting around, the housing and, and so forth.
So, they don't really, I don't think they discriminate on whether it is Bud or, or Coors or whatever. Uh, they, it's, it's just one of those things. But yeah, I think the, I, I've seen them complain about the food not tasting. and they don't want that. Um, so that can also cause a, a problem that, that, that would cause somebody to complain when it's really not a complaint.
Right. It's not, not necessarily a violation, but it could cause the whole thing, right?
Yeah. That's one of those little silly ones that you just, uh, oh man, who took this complaint? But, um, that's, that's, that would happen sometimes, you know, oh, we don't like the way the food tastes, you know, like, oh my God.
Okay, now, but that's, sometimes you will get a complaint about, because the food is not what they like, then we want it changed. Or the one I had was housing. They, they wanted air conditioning and the housing, they were staying and didn't have air conditioning, but it was, uh, approved housing. And, you know, not everybody, you, you don't have to provide air conditioning, but it just seems to be a best practice these days considering where you work in certain locations, not having air conditioning in.
In the south is not, is like not having heat in the north, not having air condition in South Georgia sounds like fun. No, that's not something I could do.
I didn't have air conditioner in my truck for whenever I was a junior in high school until I was a junior in college. And those hundred four days where the hundred four temperature days were pretty brutal.
Gosh, that's amazing.
What do you, what about terms and conditions? What's the one that you saw violated most often by employers?
The hours, the actual hours and, and some. And then next one after that is the, that the person's gonna be doing. Um, if they're not doing the work that's on the, uh, on the job ward or that's what, what, you know, what they would say is, you know, Hey, this is not what I was told when I got the, uh, contract in Mexico or wherever, Guatemala or Brazil or wherever, that this is what I was gonna be doing when I came to the United States.
This is totally different., this is not the hours that they said I'd be working. The other one is the money. They may think it's gonna just be a set hourly rate, but then some commodities might be in a peace rate and, and that if that's not on the disclosure, then that causes a problem, uh, when the people are working because some, okay, I'm, hey, I'm coming to make 12 hours.
I'm not coming up here to do thousand boxes of greens a day. I'm not, that's not what I came here, I came to. 12 hours a day, as many boxes I can and so forth. So, the, the thing with the standard, and, and I've done cases where you, you have a peace rate, and the money thing is really the big deal. But a, a lot of stigmata is that a foreign worker does more work than a corresponding worker.
And then we, we did a, uh, analysis of that and come to find out that the actual foreign workers were doing less work than the, uh, corresponding workers. But they wanted to get rid of the correspondent workers because they said they weren't producing. Uh, so that was something that we found out, you know, looking at a quarter of numbers or so forth to see, and, and, uh, the complaint was that the H-2A workers were being treated unfairly based on the production standard.
And come to find out that it was, it was kind of vice versa. They were trying to get rid of the corresponding workers and keep the foreign workers, uh, because the foreign workers will. And the correspondent worker will leave, um, in that aspect. So, if, if somebody's offering a, a, a dime, or a quarter more down the road, the correspondent worker might leave just to go pick up, you know, a quarter more bucket on something else.
When. The, uh, the foreign worker actually can't leave unless yeah. They have the money to leave. So, we've seen that one. Yeah.
No, those are both common ones. Well, looks like we are good on time here, Warren. I appreciate you joining again. Can you tell people how to reach you again? Sure. Uh, please gimme a call in South Georgia.
Uh, my phone number is 229-589-2288. Um, and my business name is WLW2 Consulting, LLC, and we are looking forward to working with Kyle as much as possible, um, and try to help anybody we can. Uh, we know this is a difficult law when you're dealing with basically four different things, four different laws in play, and each one has a set standard.
Rules, if you wanna say that, um, to go by. But I, I, I truly thank you, Kyle. It's always great.
Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate it. It's always fun to, to pick your brain. You, you have a lot of experience and, uh, or really interesting talk to, so I appreciate taking the time, Warren. We'll talk to you soon. Thank y'all for listening to the Immigration Guy Podcast.
We really appreciate it. You can find us on our website, go to www.farmerlawpc.com. You can find me on LinkedIn and Twitter. Just search at Kyle Farmer, FLPC. Uh, you can find our law firm on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube. All you have to do is search for a Farmer Law PC. Go ahead and subscribe to download all the episodes of our podcast.
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