New York Onion Farm Agrees To Pay Penalty Resulting From Fatal Van Accident
Zappala Farms, an onion farm located in Cato, N.Y., has agreed to pay civil money penalties totaling $17,320 to the U.S. Department of Labor to resolve a case that began with a van accident in Upstate New York on July 5, 1995 that claimed the lives of three migrant farm workers and seriously injured another fourteen. "No penalty, no matter how large, can make up for the loss of even one human life in such needlessly tragic circumstances," said Tammy D. McCutchen, administrator of the department's Wage and Hour Division. "Every employer of migrant workers must be aware of their responsibility under the law to provide their employees with safe transportation."
At the time of the accident, an immediate investigation by the department's Wage and Hour Division revealed violations of the Migrant Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (MSPA) by Zappala Farms, including failure to provide safe transport vehicles for the workers, failure to confirm a farm labor contractor's registration to transport migrant farm workers, and failure to ensure that a facility housing migrant workers complied with applicable federal standards. According to Catherine Quinn, Assistant District Director for the Wage and Hour Division in Syracuse, an investigation of the accident showed that the seventeen workers were crowded into a single van without securely attached seats. "The tragic results of this accident might have been avoided," she said, "if the responsible parties had simply obeyed the requirements of MSPA in transporting those migrant workers."
The department's enforcement action against Zappala Farms as the result of the accident included the assessment of "per worker" penalties, which are rare under MSPA. Recently an Administrative Law Judge found that Zappala Farms, as the employer of the workers, and Nemias Perez Roblero, as the farm labor contractor who owned the van, violated MSPA by failing to provide safe seating for all the workers they transported. The Judge also affirmed the "per worker" penalty assessments against Zappala Farms, as well as the employer's failure to confirm the farm labor contractor's registration to transport migrant farm workers, and failure to ensure that a facility housing migrant workers complied with applicable federal standards.
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