Soledad farm contractor fined $168,000 for 'inhumane' laborer housing.

A farm labor contracting company that cut corners when it came to housing seasonal laborers in the Salinas Valley last year got stuck with a far more expensive bill, after the U.S. Department of Labor found out about the laborers’ squalid living conditions.

The department’s Wage and Hour Division announced Feb. 22 that it was fining Future Ag Management, Inc., based in Soledad, $168,082 in penalties for Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act violations.

Investigators found that 22 workers employed by Future Ag Management were living in illegal and substandard conditions during lettuce and cauliflower harvests during the summer of 2017.

“The living conditions we found in this investigation can only be described as inhumane,” said Susana Blanco, director of the Wage and Hour Division in San Francisco, in a press release.

The employees were housed in cramped conditions below the square footage per person required by law, and all 22 had to share one shower and sink in unsanitary restrooms infested with insects.

In addition, local health authorities determined the water provided to employees for drinking and washing was unsafe for human consumption.

When the Labor Department found out about the situation the workers were immediately placed in hotels until safe housing could be secured for the remainder of the harvest.