Manure haulers sue Minnesota boss, alleging poor housing, deceit and wage theft

Three South African men were recruited to a western Minnesota town to work on farm. They instead hauled manure, slept in windowless rooms and often worked long hours without pay.

Those are some of the allegations filed last week against Boehnke Waste Handling and its owner, of Marietta, in a federal court.

Lawyers for Peterus Beukes, Stephanus De Klerk and Cornelius Engelbrecht are asking back wages and damages for distress, as well as labor violations.

“Plaintiffs...pumped, processed, hauled and spread manure at dozens of different worksites,” said the complaint. In other instances, the men retrieved vehicles from job sites across the Upper Midwest, returning the vehicles to Marietta.

“The work,” continues the lawsuit, “was neither in the employment of a farmer nor was it performed incidentally to or in conjunction with the farming operations of any farmer.”

Chad Boehnke, the owner of manure-hauling company, is also named a defendant.

A Star Tribune call placed to Boehnke’s shop was not returned.

In this latest case, the South African workers allege that, beginning in 2021, they anticipated working as farmhands when arriving in Marietta. A job posting from Boehnke Waste Hauling noted they would “perform duties on a farm for a farmer.”

But rather than tending to animals or planting crops, they found themselves handling manure and traveling across various states to retrieve trucks. Furthermore, the plaintiffs allege, they weren’t fully paid for their time traveling and stayed in rooms that hadn’t been cleared by state officials as proper housing.

Engelbrecht said when he asked for unpaid wages before returning to South Africa to care for a family member in November 2023, Boehnke forced him to sign a termination letter and drove him to the airport, dispatching him at night for a morning departure and charging Engelbrecht both for half the ticket and $100 for the ride.

In another allegation, De Klerk said he was berated by Boehnke when he asked for his wages and called local law enforcement.

“A poster hung in Defendants’ workshop stating that workers would be beaten if they did not work,” said the lawsuit.

The agricultural visa program allows for foreign workers to come and work for farm or ranch employment on a short-term basis in the U.S.

According to court records, a different South African H-2A worker sued Boehnke last fall for similar labor abuses. In 2017, Boehnke was sued by a manure hauler from Colorado who alleged the Minnesota man withheld over $130,000 in unpaid receipts for contracting work.

Both cases were settled out of court.

The allegations of abuse against foreign farm workers is the latest in a series of formal allegations of illegal conduct in Minnesota’s farm country over the last six months.

In January, Attorney General Keith Ellison sued a Paynesville dairy, claiming workers were forced to live in squalid conditions and did not receive $3 million in earned wages.

In a Delaware bankruptcy court last fall, Minnesota’s Department of Labor and Industry accused HyLife, a Canadian-owned pork company operating a plant in Windom, of illegally withholding tens of thousands of dollars in back wages from its largely immigrant workforce, including many short-term, agricultural visa-holders.