Raw Seafoods is being sued for allegedly using underaged migrant laborers, the latest in a string of lawsuits in southern Massachusetts related to migrant labor.
Justice at Work (JAW), the Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic (WIRAC) at Yale Law School, and Centro Comunitario de Trabajadores (CCT) announced in a release they have sued on behalf of three minors who were allegedly employed at Raw Seafoods' processing facility in Fall River, Massachusetts, U.S.A.
The lawsuit, which does not provide the names of the plaintiffs, claims Raw Seafoods violated state, federal, and international laws.
“Defendants extracted child labor from plaintiffs and subjected them to coercion, psychological abuse, hazardous workplace conditions, and a discriminatory work environment,” they said in a press release.
The complaint alleges a Raw Seafoods supervisor subjected the three workers to a discriminatory hostile work environment and at times threatened them with violence. The complaint also alleges the supervisor deliberately impeded the minors’ ability to attend school and forced them use fish-sorting and fish-cutting machinery they were not trained to use.
“I remember being so tired and afraid of saying anything. I was fifteen. I had rashes all over my body all the time because of the work with the cleaning chemicals,” one plaintiff, named “S.S.” in the lawsuit, said. “In school, I couldn’t write the next day because my hands were freezer-burned from work. They often shook, so I couldn’t hold a pencil. I don’t think it’s okay for anyone to experience that.”
The supervisor is named as “Rolando Doe” in the suit because his last name and residence are unknown by the accusers.
CCT Executive Director Adrian Ventura said Raw Seafoods “has a history of not listening to workers’ complaints” and that the seafood industry in general doesn’t stand up for human rights.
“Seafood processing is too dangerous and poorly managed for any minors to be working. It’s time for these companies to be made responsible for what happens under their watch,” Ventura said.
Soon after news of the lawsuit broke, Raw Seafoods released a statement saying it had not yet been served or seen an official copy of the complaint. It said because the names of the plaintiffs and the workers involved have been anonymized, it isn’t able to investigate the allegations.
“As a family business, we have prioritized the health, safety, and fair treatment of our employees for 26 years,” Raw Seafoods Vice President and Co-Owner Scott Hutchens said. “These allegations are both shocking and hurtful and are a direct attack against our core value to treat all of our employees with respect and dignity.”
This isn’t the first time that companies in southern Massachusetts have been targeted with accusations, lawsuits, or investigations related to alleged uses of child labor. The U.S. Department of Labor began investigating New Bedford, Massachusetts-based seafood processors over alleged child labor concerns in December 2023.
The investigation targeted Atlantic Red Crab and Sea Watch International, as well as two staffing agencies – Work Force Unlimited and B.J.’s Service Company. It was subsequently expanded to include Superior Temps and Empire Staffing, following media reports about migrant children working in seafood processing plants, which detailed children as young as 14 who were found to be working long shifts at the processing plants after being hired by the staffing agencies. The reports also found the teenagers would use fake IDs to obtain employment through the staffing agencies.
In March 2023, Eastern Fisheries was targeted by an investigation by the U.S. National Labor Relations Board related to an alleged unlawful termination.
Eastern Fisheries was also subject to CCT critique after firing 110 contracted workers hired from B.J.’s Service Company. CCT claimed the effort was a move to dismiss 26 leaders of an advocacy campaign calling for improvements to working conditions in the company's plant.
Despite Eastern Fisheries' offer to directly rehire its employees, only five of the company's former workers applied. According to a former employee, that was due to the company's implementation of the U.S. federal government’s E-Verify system to confirm the employment eligibility of the applicants. A letter delivered to the company by the affected employees allegedly asked Eastern Fisheries to not use E-Verify, but the company said it was using the system to avoid uncertainty and potential problems.
“Eastern simply wants to hire them the way it hires all employees, to eliminate the uncertainty and potential problems of joint employment,” an Eastern Fisheries spokesperson told SeafoodSource in April 2023.
