Nonprofit law firm Towards Justice announced April 18 that last week a group of former employees of northeastern Colorado produce processing plant Pro-Health filed a proposed class action lawsuit against the company in the U.S. District Court of the District of Colorado for failing to provide advance notice of mass layoffs in violation of the Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act.
The named plaintiffs, who represent a class of more than 50 other similarly situated workers, alleged Pro-Health fired them without good cause and without notice, in order to replace them with H-2A visa guestworkers, according to a press release.
The WARN Act protects workers by requiring qualifying employers to provide notice 60 days in advance of mass layoffs and covered plant closings. The complaint alleged the plaintiffs in the case worked up to 90 hours per week sorting and processing potatoes.
According to the class action complaint, throughout the early part of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, workers at Pro-Health became increasingly concerned about their working conditions. Pro-Health decreased the length of their rest breaks from 15 to 10 minutes for every four hours of work. Pro-Health told the plaintiffs and other Pro-Health workers they could only use the bathroom during these breaks, the complaint alleged, but at various points during the plaintiffs’ employment, Pro-Health provided only one men’s bathroom for more than 40 men and dangerous and unsanitary women’s bathrooms without functioning doors.
Towards Justice noted many of the workers in the proposed class in this lawsuit worked for Pro-Health for decades before being fired from their jobs. The complaint alleged Pro-Health made various efforts to obtain H-2A visa workers to replace its existing workforce. When the company learned it had been granted such visas, the plaintiffs alleged Pro-Health moved swiftly to replace much of its workforce, including the plaintiffs.
“Pro-Health was built by and has succeeded because of immigrant labor. Many of us worked there for 10, 15, or 25 years and have sacrificed so much for this company, even throughout the pandemic. There was no real explanation and no gratitude for all of the hard work we did for their benefit. We just want to be treated fairly and feel like we received some justice for what we went through,” said named plaintiff Atilano Rodriguez in a press release.
“Pro-Health routinely required workers to put in 14 to 16 hour days of grueling labor, all while limiting their access to bathrooms and rest breaks. The physical and mental toll this took on these workers over the years is immense, and instead of being rewarded for their efforts, these workers were unfairly fired. With this lawsuit, we want to let Pro-Health know that these workers are not disposable and that its practices must change,” said Towards Justice attorney Natasha Viteri in a press release.
The workers are represented in this case by Towards Justice, a nonprofit legal organization based in Denver, Colorado, and Raisner Roupinian LLP, based in New York City.