Federal Court Issues Restraining Order Against Putnam Plant Nursery

PATTERSON, NY — The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York issued a temporary restraining order against a Patterson nursery and garden supply business, and its president, after the federal Department of Labor's solicitor's Office accused them of threatening employees and obstructing an investigation.

In November 2022, the U.S. Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division began an investigation of Berkshire Nursery & Supply Corp. and Jesus Flores, its president, to ensure compliance with the Fair Labor Standards Act and the H-2A provisions of the Immigration and Nationality Act.

Labor department officials alleged that over the following weeks Flores harassed and intimidated employees repeatedly. He threatened workers and their families with physical harm, deportation and blacklisting.

Labor department officials also accused Flores of instructing workers to lie and provide false information to division investigators.

"The threats by Berkshire Nursery & Supply Corp. and its president to intimidate workers and obstruct the department’s investigation are illegal and reprehensible," Wage and Hour Division District Director Jay I. Rosenblum said in a news release.

The department’s Office of the Solicitor obtained a temporary restraining order from the court on Wednesday.

The court’s order forbids Flores and Berkshire Nursery & Supply Corp. from doing the following:

• Violating the FLSA’s anti-retaliation provisions.
• Harming and threatening harm, termination, blacklisting of future employment; contacting immigration authorities or other law enforcement; withholding wages or reducing hours; intimidating, coercing, threatening or retaliating or discriminating against their employees in any other way to prevent or dissuade them from participating in the department’s investigation or in any other FLSA-protected activity.
• Obstructing and interfering, in any way, with the division’s investigation.
• Telling any workers not to cooperate with investigators, instructing them to provide incomplete or false information or questioning them about their cooperation or communications with investigators.
• Communicating with any employee regarding the investigation without first informing the employee that they may communicate with investigators voluntarily and free from coercion and not be discriminated against for doing so.

The court also requires Berkshire to do the following:

• Permit division representatives to read aloud – in English, Spanish and any other language understood by the majority of employees – a statement describing employees’ FLSA rights during their paid working hours and in the presence of the defendants. The employers must also mail a written statement of the same to current and former employees.
• Provide a written notice to the Wage and Hour Division at least seven days prior to termination of an employee for any reason.

View the order.

Federal law protects workers’ rights to participate in an investigation without fear of threats to them and their families or other forms of reprisal. In cases like these, the U.S. Department of Labor will pursue every legal remedy to ensure workers feel safe to speak freely and truthfully with the department’s investigators, said Regional Solicitor of Labor Jeffrey S. Rogoff.

The division’s White Plains area office is conducting the investigation.