Judge Sides with Farmers on Hot Goods

If you have been following the lawsuit of two Oregon blueberry farmers against the Department of Labor over blatant misuse of its “hot goods” powers, you know that recently U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin issued a ruling vacating so-called consent agreements between U.S. Department of Labor and the two farms because the USDOL misused its hot goods powers to the point of duress.

Last week the Labor Department filed an objection to Judge Coffin’s opinion. I visited with Oregon Farm Bureau Executive Vice President Dave Dillon and asked what he felt other Pacific Northwest farmers and ranchers needed to know about this ongoing case. Dillon shares

Dillon: “The one piece of advice that applies to all agricultural employers when visited by USDOL is don’t give them your customer list under any circumstance short of a federal judge telling you to turn over your customer list to them. The department has no legitimate reasons to need your customer list and in these cases they used these lists —that the farmers gave voluntarily— and the department used them to start calling customers and to put pressure on the farms to sign these ridiculous agreements.”

Another interesting tactic by the USDOL was that rather than put the penalties in an escrow account to be paid if farms were proven to be in the wrong — the Department told the farms to make the checks out to the Department of Labor. Interesting ….

Unfortunately in 90 seconds I can’t go into the details of the blatant abuse of power by the Department of Labor in this case — it is incredulous and jaw-droppingly unjust. You can learn a lot more at http://www.oregonfb.org/usdol/.