Agrium Inc. announced today that Crop Production Services (CPS), the retail business unit of Agrium, recently settled with the U.S. Department of Justiceover claims that CPS discriminated against U.S. workers to fill a small number of temporary seasonal technician positions at its rice seed facility in Texas. These positions were filled under the previously used H-2A foreign workers visa program, the last time the program was used by the company was in 2016.
CPS is the proud employer of over 10,000 U.S. employees which provide important crop input products, services and solutions to farmers across the United States.
It’s important to note that in the settlement agreement, CPS denies discriminating against U.S. workers and notes that it requested and received certification from the U.S. Department of Labor (in February of 2016) that no U.S. workers were qualified and available to fill the positions in question. Our U.S. Crop Production Services business has always had a practice of hiring U.S. workers first and foremost in cases where a qualified candidate is available.
