Lawsuit filed against local Fall River seafood supplier for alleged child labor

FALL RIVER, Mass. (WLNE) — A federal lawsuit has been filed against Raw Seafoods in Fall River, alleging the company forced immigrant teens to work the overnight shifts.

The lawsuit was filed by Worker and Immigrant Rights Advocacy Clinic at Yale Law School and Justice at Work.

The company is one of the leading wholesale seafood suppliers in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

The lawsuit claims that the owners profited off of child labor, and “forced them to work through perilous overnight shifts, and subjected the Plaintiffs to coercion, psychological abuse, hazardous workplace conditions, and a discriminatory work environment.”

“As a result, the defendants jeopardized plaintiffs’ physical safety and undermined their dignity. The defendants’ actions violated federal and state law and international human rights norms, giving the lie to their claims of social responsibility,” the lawsuit states.

The lawsuit further states that the defendants allegedly made the teens work approximately ten-and-a-half hour shifts, from around 3:30 p.m. to 2:00 a.m. (or longer), often six days per week.

They were also allegedly required to work in a refrigerated area of the facility, cutting fish with sharp knives, packing and moving heavy boxes, and handling dangerous machinery.

The lawsuit also states that because the teens had to work long hours into the night, their ability to attend and participate in school was affected,  as their work schedules afforded them approximately two to four hours of sleep per night which left them exhausted during the school day, and unable to do homework or study.

Many of the allegations mention a single supervisor, only named as Rolando Doe, who is accused of assigning the teens more dangerous and
laborious tasks based on their ethnicity, and berating them with racist remarks, profanity, and obscenities “nearly every day.”

ABC6 has reached out to the company for comment on the lawsuit.

The plaintiffs were only mentioned by initials in the lawsuit.