LAWYERS said on Tuesday that four Hawaiian farms are settling a discrimination lawsuit for a total of $2.4 million (£1.43m) over allegations that they exploited hundreds of Thai workers.

The US Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) filed a federal lawsuit in 2011 against California-based labour contractor Global Horizons and six Hawaii farms, with allegations including subjecting workers to discrimination, uninhabitable housing, insufficient food, inadequate wages and deportation threats.

On Tuesday, four of the companies agreed to pay up. Mac Farms of Hawaii will pay $1.6m, Kelena Farms will pay $275,000, Captain Cook Coffee will pay $100,000, and Kauai Coffee will pay $425,000.

Del Monte Fresh Produce settled for $1.2m (£.72) last year.

A judge recently found Global Horizons liable for the discrimination and abuse of the workers.

Global Horizons and Maui Pineapple, the last farm not to settle, will go to trial in November, said EEOC lawyer Anna Park.

All of the $3.6m will go directly to the workers, Ms Park said, in a distribution that will involve determining who worked on the farms, for how long and the severity of the abuse suffered.

Victims said they had been recruited in Thailand to do agricultural work in the US with promises of earning enough money to support their families.

But their passports were taken away and one victim said he had to sleep on the floor and was forced to harvest bananas even when sick. 

Another said he lived in a bug-infested house where 26 workers shared one bathroom.

Among allegations in the lawsuit was that 20 Mac Farms workers had lived in a house approved for only five people, which “lacked a functioning toilet, toilet paper and hot water.”

The contractor had sought impoverished Thai nationals, who they had stereotyped as docile and compliant, Ms Park said, and charged them fees ranging from $9,500 to $26,000 (£5,668-£15,515). 

The overcrowded housing was often infested with bedbugs and some workers had to resort to making “primitive slingshots to catch chickens so they could eat.”

The farms also agreed to various anti-discrimination measures.