AG Keith Ellison on filing Minnesota's largest wage theft lawsuit against dairy producer

CATHY WURZER: Earlier today, Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison announced one of the largest wage theft lawsuits in Minnesota history against a large dairy producer with facilities in Stearns and Redwood counties. Ellison alleges that Evergreen Acres Dairy failed to pay an estimated $3 million in wages to its workers, workers who are mostly immigrants from Mexico. The attorney general also alleged that the company provided substandard housing for the workers. The lawsuit comes after Ellison created a new wage theft unit in 2019 to protect Minnesota workers' pay. He's here with us to talk about the lawsuit. Welcome, Attorney General.

KEITH ELLISON: Yeah, thank you, Cathy. Thanks for having me on.

CATHY WURZER: With a figure like $3 million, it would seem as though Evergreen's owners have been skimming wages for a while now. What's the time frame?

KEITH ELLISON: Well, it's an extensive amount of time, years, you know. A number of people have come forward. It's a fairly large number of people that we're talking about. Several-- certainly more than several, several dozens, maybe as many as over 100. And so our wage theft group has an economist who tabulates what we believe the expected recovery to be if everything was paid. And we're estimating about $3 million in unpaid wages at this point.

CATHY WURZER: Is it clear to your folks in the unit how the farm owners withheld the money?

KEITH ELLISON: Well, what we found is that, first of all, Evergreen is not some small family farm. It's a large operation that over the last three years, has employed hundreds of people. So it's a fairly-- it's a big place. And what has happened is that Evergreen has simply denied workers the full amount of wages that they work by systematically underreporting the number of hours that the employees worked on their pay stubs, often shaving off as many as 12 to 32 hours from each two-week pay period.

These workers are vulnerable so they're not really in a position to complain. And so their housing is supplied by the employer and so is their work. And then also, some of this money is coming out of the fact that they deduct without an agreement. Without any sort of agreement, they deduct pay of the lodging. So that, again, is pay that is not going to the worker that should be going to the worker. And so there's a number of problems here.

CATHY WURZER: And I'm sure there's probably some language barriers, too, that led to some of this happening, right? I understand that multiple workers have come forward with their experiences. Can you tell us a little bit about some of those personal stories?

KEITH ELLISON: Well, I tell you, one worker reported to us that this worker had been injured on the job. And he couldn't work the next day because of the injury. And then he explained to us that the boss came in. The boss/landlord came in and yelled at him and even pushed him physically to get back to work.

So this individual feels like not only was he paid less than he was supposed to, injured on the job, and then pushed out of bed before he was ready. But he also alleges that he was grabbed by the neck, pushed into a wall, and told that he would be evicted from Evergreen in 10 minutes if he didn't get back to work.

CATHY WURZER: I watched your news conference, by the way, online. And I was thinking in a wage theft case, it's the worker's word against the bosses, right? And you said in the news conference that Evergreen allegedly destroyed records, or the record keeping wasn't up to snuff. Are there challenges, then, to proving your case?

KEITH ELLISON: I think that we would not file a case unless we felt very confident that we could prove every allegation. I mean, the employer has a duty to keep records, to keep certain records. And if they don't keep them, they're the ones that are going to have to have an explanation for why the records vary from what the workers are saying.

And again, I mean, it's beyond belief that all these workers that you talk to are just making up stories on this one employer. And then we have photographs of the living conditions that they live in, which are quite abysmal. So I mean, we feel we have a case that we can prove in court. We're looking forward to getting in front of a judge and a jury.

CATHY WURZER: Let me ask you about the unsafe housing. You did show some of those photos online. What was your impression when you saw some of those pictures?

KEITH ELLISON: I just felt like people, human beings should be treated better than that. And it kind of harkens back to a time where the company town, where the boss was responsible for paying you, and also had housing and also owned the store and all this kind of stuff and controlled every aspect of a person's life and gave people the impression that they were trapped. But these people, despite this situation, even came forward and admits what they alleged were threats and intimidation and still said, this is what happened to us.

And so this is what our country is all about. Everybody has to abide by the law. The law is clear regarding wages and what is due and owing. And the law is clear with regard to housing. And this landlord and employer has to abide by both.

CATHY WURZER: What remedies are you seeking? Dollar amounts? Fines? Can the workers get their money back?

KEITH ELLISON: Well, we are asking the court to give restitution, which would be return of money. We are asking for-- there's a $25,000 civil fine for each allegation that is proved. But what we're really asking for now is compliance. Just get in line with what the law requires. Just get in line with what the law requires right now. And that's it. And stop doing things like intimidating workers and not keeping your records properly and not making sure that the workers are getting all the money that they've earned. And make sure that if you're going to provide housing, that it's up to code and is consistent with what Minnesota law requires.

CATHY WURZER: As you know, there's been reporting on the national level of some dairy farms across the country being difficult places to work. It's hard work anyway, right? But these are huge, huge farms. So let's talk a bit about Minnesota's dairy industry. How do you think a lawsuit like this could affect the industry overall?

KEITH ELLISON: Well, what I can tell you is that there are literally hundreds of Minnesotans who run dairy farms in an honest and good way and are fair to their workers and comply with the law. There are some who do not. This industry has been under a lot of pressure. There's been a lot of consolidation in the industry, I can tell you, a lot of them. You and I both know people whose families used to own dairy farms who no longer do because it got tough out there.

And I believe one of the reasons that it gets tough is because you have certain industry actors. It doesn't have to be a lot. It can be a few, but who monopolize the market, underpay workers, and outcompete farmers who have to pay the real costs of what it means to produce milk, and then drive them out of business. I mean, it's not an easy industry.

And I think that it's important for all of us to think more about it. I can tell you that our antitrust group thinks a lot about how to maintain Minnesota dairy industry on a fair and competitive basis and make sure that the farmer, him and herself, is in a position to make a go at it. And when big industries outcompete and won't pay their workers right, that hurts. That hurts the entire industry.

CATHY WURZER: Quick final question here, Attorney General, you created this wage theft unit back in 2019. What have you seen so far? I mean, how pervasive is wage theft in the state of Minnesota?

KEITH ELLISON: Well, the good news is that most Minnesota employers do right by their workers. That's good news. But there is a substantial number who are in the distinct and absolute minority who don't do the right thing, that our work is needed. Up until recently, we didn't even have enough people to even try to tackle the number of complaints that we got. I will give a lot of credit to the Department of Labor and Industry, who works on this matter as well.

And if anybody feels that they have been the victim of wage theft, you can call the attorney general's office, or you can call the Department of Labor and Industry. Or you can call the US Department of Justice or the Federal Trade Commission. But we suggest you just start with the AG's office at 651-296-3353.

CATHY WURZER: All right, Attorney General, thank you for your time.

KEITH ELLISON: All right now. Bye-bye.

CATHY WURZER: We've been talking to Minnesota Attorney General Keith Ellison. By the way, MPR News has reached out to Evergreen Acres Dairy for comment on this lawsuit, but has not heard back by the time of this interview.