CHEYENNE — Two former shepherds from Peru are accusing key players in the sheep industry in the West of conspiring to keep wages low for foreign workers.
Rodolfo Llacua and Esliper Huaman, represented by a Denver law firm called Towards Justice, are seeking to have their lawsuit treated as a class-action case seeking damages for current and former shepherds across the West.
The lawsuit, filed this week in U.S. District Court in Denver, targets the Salt Lake City-based Western Range Association and Casper-based Mountain Plains Agricultural Service.
The companies place foreign workers with sheep operations. The lawsuit also names eight sheep-ranching operations across the West as defendants.
For decades, the federal government has endorsed ranchers bringing in foreign shepherds to oversee vast herds in Western states on the grounds that U.S. citizens wouldn’t take the jobs. They are called “H2-A” workers after the federal labor program.
Between 2,000 and 2,500 H2-A workers are in the country, handling nearly all of the shepherd work that sustains the West’s roughly $275 million annual sheep industry, the lawsuit states.
The herders, many from South American countries such as Peru, work for wages as low as $750 a month. They commonly work seven days a week and up to 12 hours a day for months on end. They live in trailers or tents without plumbing or electricity, the lawsuit states.
Llacua and Huaman say in their lawsuit that the Western Range Association and Mountain Plains Agricultural Service, as well as ranchers who hire foreign workers through them, violated anti-trust laws by colluding to keep wages at the minimum levels required by the federal government.
“We think that people working as shepherds should be fairly compensated, pursuant to regular market forces,” said Nina DiSalvo, executive director of Towards Justice. Huaman is working in Utah, while Llacua is in Colorado, she said.
Kelli Griffith, executive director of Mountain Plains Agricultural Service, said Wednesday her company and its member ranchers have participated in the H2-A program for more than 25 years.
“They’re experienced and diligent about complying with all their legal obligations,” Griffith said of the ranchers who hire herders through Mountain Plains.
