CNN
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Some 13,000 Mexican migrant workers are owed $6.5 million in unpaid wages, in accordance to a tweet from the United States Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs, which introduced a joint effort with Mexico to find and compensate the workers.
“This program will return millions of dollars in back wages to Mexican nationals who participated in US temporary foreign worker programs,” tweeted Ken Salazar, the United States Ambassador to Mexico, on Tuesday.
The Mexican ministry and the United States Department of Labor’s Bureau of International Labor Affairs is launching the H-2A Workers’ Wages Recovery Program to make sure the workers can accumulate their compensation, Salazar added.
Skilled overseas farm workers are the spine of US agriculture and are sometimes in the US on H-2A seasonal visas. It is unclear who these workers have been employed by after they failed to obtain their full wages, and what years they have been employed.
The cash owed to these 1000’s of workers was recovered by the US Department of Labor after it failed to find the people in order to ship their checks, in accordance to a press launch from Mexico’s Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare.
The partnership will try to find the migrant workers who’re believed to have “received less than the legally established salary from their employers in the United States,” in accordance to a press launch by Mexico’s Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare.
The US is anticipated to ship Mexico an inventory with names of workers who’re “owed wages and overtime.” Mexico will then search for the workers in authorities databases and inform them of their checks.
“Together, we watch over labor rights,” tweeted Luisa Alcalde, Mexico’s Minister of Labor and Social Welfare, on Tuesday.