Links
Migrant forest workers get $2.75M wage settlement
A company that provides migrant labor for the forestry industry has agreed to pay $2.75 million to more than 2,200 workers who claimed in a federal lawsuit that they were shortchanged on their wages.
Superior Forestry Service Inc., based in Tilly in southeast Arkansas, and the workers filed the class-action settlement proposal Thursday in U.S. District Court in Nashville, Tenn.
A fairness hearing is set for March 26; U.S. District Judge William J. Haynes, Jr. is expected to grant final approval to the settlement.
Three times during the course of the lawsuit, which was filed in 2006, Superior was cited for contempt for improperly contacting workers who were either involved in the suit or could have joined the court action.
The company provided forestry workers from Mexico and Central America under a federal guest-worker program. The workers planted pine seedlings across the South.
In the settlement, Superior denies any wrongdoing.