EEOC Files Lawsuit Against Three Farms for Sexual Harassment

The EEOC filed three lawsuits last week alleging sexual harassment of farmworkers.  One of the lawsuits filed was against Roy Farms, alleging that a male supervisor made sexual and threatening comments to male workers, touched them in a sexual manner and insisted they watch him urinate.  One worker quit after he had complained, and nothing was done.  The largest onion grower in the U.S., River Point Farms, was also under fire.  The EEOC alleged that a supervisor not only made sexual comments and requests for sexual favors to a farmworker, but also encouraged her husband to engage in domestic abuse, and even encouraged the woman's husband to kill her.  After her husband tried to kill her, the supervisor blamed the woman for causing her husband's arrest and fired her.  National Food Corporation, a supplier of eggs, allowed a supervisor to demand sex from a female employee as a condition of keeping her job.  The female employee worked alone in an isolated barn where the supervisor was the only management person on site.  These three cases join three earlier cases that were settled in the last six months also involving sexual harassment of farmworkers: Mid Valley Labor Services, DiMare Ruskin and  Giumarra Vineyards.