When state and federal regulators picture what business life is like in western Massachusetts, one Whately address may come to mind – Chang & Sons Enterprises Inc. on River Road.
The federal Department of Labor knows it. So does the federal Environmental Protection Agency as well as those who handle lawsuits heard by the U.S. District Court.
Here in Massachusetts, officials with the state Department of Public Health and the state Department of Environmental Protection have all invested time trying to get owners of the bean sprout farm to comply with rules that face all those who pursue this kind of business.
This past week, the farm was hit with another fine – part of a string of sanctions related to regulatory oversight stretching back nearly 10 years.
While earlier state and federal penalties have been paid, and problems corrected, it is puzzling that the Chang family continues to run afoul of business standards and practices.
This past Wednesday, the farm was fined $16,500 by the state DEP for violating the terms of its wastewater discharge permit. It sent too much wastewater into the Connecticut River, the agency said, and failed to keep proper records.
While that sounds somewhat benign, the discharges added unlawful pollutants to New England’s great river. That’s the issue that drove the Connecticut River Watershed Council to sue the farm in U.S. District Court, a dispute the business settled in May by paying $78,000.
The latest fine stems from a DEP visit last August, in which officials were following up on a 2013 enforcement order. A DEP spokeswoman said Chang & Sons Enterprises addressed some of the problems flagged in 2013, but not all.
The business appears to have a history of not taking regulatory sanctions seriously. By far its biggest penalty came in 2013, when the federal labor department ordered the farm to pay $305,500 to 14 employees, the amount the agency determined was due to them under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The department found that the farm had paid employees a flat rate of $350 to $425 a week for work that exceeded 40 hours, driving the minimum wage down to as low as $5 an hour.
Nonetheless, the company continued to flout wage and hours laws. In February 2015 it was found to have violated these laws for second time and was ordered to pay $73,000 in back wages to six employees.
All that came after a highly publicized showdown over substandard housing the farm maintained for workers on Sugarloaf Street in South Deerfield. A building there was condemned in August 2012 by the local building inspector and the state Department of Public Health for safety and sanitary violations.
It was torn down and a new duplex erected on the site.
That run-in wasn’t enough, the record shows, to persuade Chang & Sons Enterprises to fly right.
The farm’s history of violating wage laws didn’t go unnoticed. It led the labor department to order that it hire an outside consultant to monitor its compliance with wage laws.
The consultant was directed last year to report directly to the federal agency for three years. That should help instill a sense of the importance of these rules.
Despite years of monitoring and sanctions, the farm’s owners have not shown a desire to comply with state and federal laws that exist to protect workers and our shared environment.
Last year, the director of the labor department’s Boston office characterized the farm’s attitude in stark terms: “Chang & Sons Enterprises’ repeated disregard for the law and workers’ rights is inexcusable.”
To join the ranks of socially responsible businesses, Chang & Sons Enterprises must demonstrate it will no longer willfully violate these laws.