Major Farm to Pay $3.5 Million for Alleged Anti-U.S. Labor Bias (1)

Munger Bros. LLC, the world’s largest producer of fresh blueberries, has agreed to pay $3.5 million after Labor Department investigators found the company illegally hired foreign visa-holders over United States citizens.

The company gave preferential hiring treatment to foreign laborers with temporary H-2A visas, the Labor Department said in a recent complaint. Munger Bros. also underpaid those workers and provided them with substandard living quarters that were “infested with bed bugs” and had “inoperable toilets, windows with metal bars, and inoperable smoke alarms,” the department said.

The company, which operates farms in California and Washington, agreed to pay $2.5 ...