In partnership with PBS' "Frontline" and television network Univision, reporters spent nearly a year reviewing thousands of pages of documents and crisscrossing the nation to hear workers' stories of sexual assault.
The investigation was the first systematic analysis of the 41 lawsuits filed by the U.S. Equal Opportunity Commission against agricultural businesses in the last 15 years.
In virtually all of the lawsuits, the alleged perpetrators held positions of power in the company; in more than half of the lawsuits, the superiors were accused of targeting multiple victims. In cases in which sexual assault and rape are alleged, these supervisors remained on the job for years without fear of arrest, and law enforcement has done almost nothing to prosecute potential crimes.
More than four of five workers who reported the problem to their employers say they were demoted, fired or subjected to further abuse, the analysis shows.
The lawsuits emerged from 1,106 sexual harassment complaints filed by agricultural workers with the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission since 1998. Most of the complaints are dismissed by the federal commission or settle out of court, and the details remain secret.
"Sexual violence doesn't happen unless there's an imbalance of power," said William R. Tamayo, the San Francisco regional attorney for the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission and who is not related to Olivia Tamayo.
In May, the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board, which enforces state labor laws for farmworkers, filed its first case related to sexual harassment, deciding to make the issue a priority because it wasn't being adequately addressed. In that case, a woman harvesting sweet potatoes in Stanislaus County filed claims that she was fired after accusing a supervisor of sexually assaulting her.
Prosecutors didn't take up Olivia Tamayo's case. And years after the jury verdict, her former employer, Harris Farms, has continued to deny any wrongdoing. The workers had a consensual relationship that the company did not know about, CEO John Harris said in a statement. Although the jury believed the accused employee was a supervisor, "we felt he was not," Harris said.
The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, which is charged with enforcing workplace civil rights laws, is the only government entity actively pursuing these cases. But it cannot bring criminal charges. It can file only civil lawsuits against the employers - not the perpetrators - for failing to stop on-the-job sexual harassment.
The California Agricultural Labor Relations Board had never filed a complaint related to sexual harassment until May.
