Farm Labor Abuses Are Target of Raids : Enforcement: Strike force assesses fines and goes after unlicensed labor contractors in Imperial County.

A strike force of state and federal officials investigating farm labor abuses swept into Imperial County on Tuesday, assessing nearly $300,000 in fines and accusing six labor contractors of criminal charges of operating without a license.

California Labor Commissioner Victoria L. Bradshaw, who helped oversee the raids, said the enforcement effort was prompted partly by concerns of growing abuses related to the downturn in farm hiring.

State figures show that as many as 20,000 farm workers will soon exhaust their unemployment benefits, possibly making them willing “to take jobs that they wouldn’t take if they weren’t desperate,” Bradshaw said.

Farm employment in the Imperial Valley has been hurt severely by, among other things, a crop-damaging poinsettia whitefly invasion.

Investigators began their workday at 3 a.m. in the border town of Calexico, where many of the Mexican day laborers who work on Imperial County’s farms congregate each morning in hopes of landing a day’s work.

After interviewing workers there, six strike force teams of about four investigators each fanned out to farms across the county, and by late afternoon they reported inspecting 17 employers.

Those inspections led to the charges of operating without a license against the six contractors, a crime punishable for first-time offenders by up to six months in jail and a $500 fine.

In addition, investigators assessed $276,000 in penalties against eight employers who allegedly violated state law by failing to buy workers’ compensation insurance for their employees.

An additional $11,450 penalty was assessed against an employer accused of failing to pay workers their promised wages, and $6,000 in fines were levied against employers accused of failing to provide proper sanitation for field workers. Officials are continuing to investigate a variety of possible wage, health and safety violations.

Government officials, who are expected to continue the sweep for a few days, put together what they said was an unprecedented number of agencies to conduct the raids because of the wide variety of farm labor laws allegedly violated.

Along with the U.S. Labor Department, state agencies included in the action were the Department of Industrial Relations’ Division of Labor Standards Enforcement and Cal/OSHA, along with the Employment Development Department, the Department of Pesticide Regulation and the California Highway Patrol. Also involved were the Imperial County district attorney’s office and the El Centro Police Department.