At one farm, workers lived in a converted barn that was infested with cockroaches. The “kitchen sink” was a utility sink next to a water heater. Photos from civil complaint.
It was the biggest wage theft case the Minnesota Attorney General’s Office ever brought. More than $3 million in wages allegedly stolen from hundreds of mostly undocumented immigrants working across a sprawling dairy operation with more than a dozen farms in central Minnesota.
But after the state settled the lawsuit against Evergreen Acres Dairy and its related businesses for just $250,000 last month, workers say they’re feeling shortchanged, again, and worried about the message it sends to other dairy farms that fleece workers.
“What are the other farmers going to say? It’s minimal. They’re going to keep doing the same thing,” one worker, speaking in Spanish, told Attorney General Keith Ellison through an interpreter during a meeting on Saturday.
About 40 current and former Evergreen Acres workers, some with young children in tow, came to the basement of St. Joseph’s Catholic Church just outside St. Cloud to hear about the settlement that ends a two-year-old case.
They expressed their disappointment in the paltry penalties for dairy owner Keith Schaefer.
“If we as immigrants, as undocumented immigrants, stole a water or we stole a chicken, we go directly to jail. Why is he not in jail now?” asked Ma Elena Gutierrez, executive director of Fe y Justicia, the nonprofit that helped workers bring their case to Ellison.
The case underscores the challenge of enforcing wage theft statutes given that the victims are often poor and largely powerless — especially undocumented workers — while the business owner has money, lawyers and longstanding ties to the local community.
Ellison and members of his staff who worked on the case acknowledged that $250,000 won’t make workers whole, but they defended accepting a settlement over taking the case to trial and noted that another agency could still bring criminal charges.
“You’re right, it should be more money,” Ellison said. “The worst thing would be if nobody was here to do anything.”
Going after wage theft has been a central focus of Ellison’s office. In 2019, he created a wage theft unit, coinciding with the state enacting one of the country’s strictest wage theft laws that made it a felony to steal more than $1,000 in wages — the same as stealing clothes or electronics or anything else. Since then, his office has boasted several settlements, including winning nearly $1 million in back wages for 3M workers.
Ellison’s office began investigating allegations of wage theft and worker abuse in fall 2022 at Evergreen Acres, where workers told investigators they clocked as many as 168 hours in a two-week period, earning between $12.50 to $17.50 an hour for grueling farm work.
According to the 61-page lawsuit Ellison’s office filed in January, Schaefer and his daughter, Megan Hill, regularly underpaid workers by 12 to 32 hours each two-week paycheck, didn’t pay overtime premiums and destroyed or falsified payroll records.
The lawsuit also alleges employees were charged rent to live in garages, barns and other buildings unfit for human habitation. Some lived with bedrooms and bathrooms covered in mold, while others didn’t even have toilets. Some employees who worked 12-hour day shifts shared the same bed with others who worked 12-hour night shifts, and they had their wages automatically deducted for rent.
Workers also say Schaefer is emotionally volatile and frequently abused workers. Schaefer allegedly threatened to kill one employee and reminded the workers of a dog he recently killed, while he told other employees — many of whom are undocumented immigrants from Mexico and speak Zapotec as their first language — that he would call the police on them.
Another employee was fired for taking a day off to go to a clinic after he got chemicals in his eyes while on the job, according to the complaint.
Schaefer and Hill did not admit to any wrongdoing as part of the settlement. Their attorney did not respond to an email seeking comment.
The $250,000 will be divided among workers with wage theft claims going back to May 2020 in accordance with the statute of limitations, although workers allege Evergreen Acres has been cheating them for decades. At Saturday’s meeting, one worker said he was cheated out of wages when he worked for Evergreen in 2013 and 2016. Unfortunately, he won’t be eligible for compensation, the attorney general’s staff told him.
The attorney general’s office said that undocumented workers who were employed by Evergreen Acres since 2013 may be eligible for deferred action on deportation, which is granted to victims of labor abuses and other crimes. Some 20 Evergreen Acres workers so far have received deferred action on deportation, allowing them to obtain authorization to work in the United States for a temporary period.
The attorney general’s office told workers at Saturday’s meeting that they weren’t sure what would happen with deferred action under President-elect Donald Trump, who has promised mass deportations, but that deferred action could continue to protect them during his presidency.
In addition to the monetary settlement, Evergreen Acres must make repairs to employee housing. The attorney general will also be able to monitor the Minnesota dairy and its related companies, Evergreen Estates and Morgan Feedlots, for future violations for the next three years. Schaefer and Hill must submit regular payroll records to the attorney general and allow inspections of its employee housing to ensure it meets basic habitability standards.
Guitierrez told Ellison she’s already hearing from workers that Schaefer could be trying to skirt the settlement agreement by making workers pay him in cash for rent for uninhabitable quarters after receiving their checks.
The settlement agreement also bars Schaefer from retaliating against workers who cooperate with the attorney general, but some say they have already faced repercussions for reporting the wage theft and substandard living conditions.
One worker, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, said he was fired from Evergreen Acres earlier this year. He said he couldn’t find work at other dairy farms and suspects Schaefer told them that he cooperated with investigators.
Ellison encouraged workers to continue coming forward to report wrongdoing.
“We’re not going to quit,” Ellison said. “The only way they continue to get away with it is if people get intimidated and don’t come forward.”
As for criminal charges, Ellison’s wage theft division doesn’t have criminal jurisdiction. They can refer cases to local law enforcement and county attorneys to put together a criminal case. A spokesman for the Attorney General’s Office said they have been in communication with the Stearns County attorney about Evergreen Acres.
Wage theft prosecutions are exceedingly rare, especially considering it’s believed to be one of the most common forms of theft.
Since 2019, prosecutors in Minnesota have only charged felony wage theft twice. The one wage theft conviction, a gross misdemeanor, appears to be a mistake since the individual was charged for shoplifting electronics from Walmart.
Part of the reason for the dearth of cases may be a perception of wage theft as not as serious or criminal as shoplifting or fraudulently claiming unemployment insurance. Also, wage theft cases ostensibly land with local police and prosecutors, who probably have little appetite or expertise in investigating white collar crimes.
In 2022, state lawmakers did empower the Commerce Fraud Bureau to criminally investigate financial crimes. The agency was previously bound to only investigate insurance fraud.
Evergreen workers say employers must face penalties or else they won’t change.
“I’m not interested in the money, and neither is anyone else who was here. What we’re interested in is justice for the people who have been here before and for the people who are going to work for him in the future — that there’s a precedent,” said one worker in Spanish through an interpreter.
Madison McVan contributed translation.
YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE.