CdA firm Alpha Services settles with former workers

A Coeur d’Alene company has agreed to pay a settlement to Latin American workers it employed in tree-planting operations in the South.

Alpha Services LLC did not admit guilt in settling the case, said owner Robert Zaharie. With legal bills mounting, however, reaching a settlement was the most expedient move for the company, he said.

The Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., filed the suit last year on behalf of 11 guest workers from Mexico, Ecuador and Guatemala.

The men came to the United States on temporary work visas. According to the suit, they didn’t speak English and had little understanding of their legal rights, particularly their rights to overtime pay and a prevailing wage required under the federal guest worker program. The suit said that workers received “piece-rate” earnings for their labor, and that Alpha Services failed to supplement the earnings to bring the wages to required levels.

The suit also accused Alpha Services of failing to pay overtime.

Zaharie denied the allegations, saying his firm got caught up in social and political agendas over the guest worker program.

According to Zaharie, the workers averaged $10 per hour, which met prevailing wages in the states where they worked. He also said that some workers left Alpha Services after seven weeks to take other jobs.

A letter included in the court file referred to individual settlements ranging from $500 to $6,000 per worker. Zaharie said the final settlement was confidential and he couldn’t discuss it. The case was filed in federal court in Arkansas and later transferred to the southern district of Mississippi.