BANGOR (AP) – Twenty migrant workers from Mexico filed a lawsuit Monday alleging their Mississippi-based employer misled and underpaid them when he brought them to Maine to rake wild blueberries.

The suit was filed in Knox County Superior Court against F&G Forestry Services Inc. of Stringer, Miss., and Francisco Tunek, president of the company. The suit seeks to recover for each laborer the amount of his unpaid wages, plus damages that are equal to double each laborer’s unpaid wages.

F&G recruits farm workers for growers in various states, including Maine. The growers who hired the 20 men who filed the suit are not identified.

The suit alleges violations of the federal Fair Labor Standards Act, the federal Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act and the Maine Wage Payment Statute, as well as breach of contract, fraud and misrepresentation.

The suit says the laborers were recruited to Maine by misleading information, including the implication that each worker could earn as much as $8,000 raking blueberries.

They were also told that they would get $2.75 per box of raked berries, when it was actually $2.50 per box, according to the suit.

They traveled to Maine thinking they would pay no more than $2 per day for housing when they actually paid $5 per day or more, the suit says. They believed also that they would not be charged for the expenses involved in traveling to Maine.

The suit was filed by Eric Nelson and Michael Guare, lawyers who work with Pine Tree Legal Assistance of Bangor. They could not be reached for comment Monday.

Reached by phone Monday, Tunek said he was working in Union in Knox County.

He said he had not seen a copy of the lawsuit, but was told by his Mississippi lawyer earlier Monday to arrange for a lawyer in Maine.

Tunek said he brought 100 migrant workers with him to Maine this summer, just as he has done for the past 12 years. Tunek said he knows “all the people” in Maine’s blueberry industry, which has pockets in Knox, Waldo and Hancock counties and is concentrated in Washington County.

Tunek’s current workers started harvesting the fields in Knox County on July 21, after finishing other migrant work in North Carolina.

“Everybody is happy and working right now,” Tunek said. “If they sue me, I want to know the reason.”