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We return to a more active pattern for the next few days with a few rounds of showers and storms. While the pattern will be unsettled, there will be plenty of dry time.

by Robert Faturechi, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

Nine witnesses in the criminal cases against former President Donald Trump have received significant financial benefits, including large raises from his campaign, severance packages, new jobs, and a grant of shares and cash from Trump’s media company.

The benefits have flowed from Trump’s businesses and campaign committees, according to a ProPublica analysis of public disclosures, court records and securities filings. One campaign aide had his average monthly pay double, from $26,000 to $53,500. Another employee got a $2 million severance package barring him from voluntarily cooperating with law enforcement. And one of the campaign’s top officials had her daughter hired onto the campaign staff, where she is now the fourth-highest-paid employee.

These pay increases and other benefits often came at delicate moments in the legal proceedings against Trump. One aide who was given a plum position on the board of Trump’s social media company, for example, got the seat after he was subpoenaed but before he testified.

Significant changes to a staffer’s work situation, such as bonuses, pay raises, firings or promotions, can be evidence of a crime if they come outside the normal course of business. To prove witness tampering, prosecutors would need to show that perks or punishments were intended to influence testimony.

White-collar defense lawyers say the situation Trump finds himself in — in the dual role of defendant and boss of many of the people who are the primary witnesses to his alleged crimes — is not uncommon. Their standard advice is not to provide any unusual benefits or penalties to such employees. Ideally, decisions about employees slated to give evidence should be made by an independent body such as a board, not the boss who is under investigation.

Get in Touch

Do you have any information about Trump’s campaign or his businesses that we should know? Robert Faturechi can be reached by email at robert.faturechi@propublica.org and by Signal or WhatsApp at 213-271-7217. Justin Elliott can be reached by email at justin@propublica.org or by Signal or WhatsApp at 774-826-6240.

Even if the perks were not intended to influence witnesses, they could prove troublesome for Trump in any future trials. Prosecutors could point to the benefits to undermine the credibility of those aides on the witness stand.

“It feels very shady, especially as you detect a pattern. … I would worry about it having a corrupt influence,” Barbara McQuade, a former U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of Michigan, said after hearing from ProPublica about benefits provided to potential Trump witnesses.

But McQuade said these cases are difficult to prove, even if the intent were actually to influence testimony, because savvy defendants don’t explicitly attach strings to the benefits and would more likely be “all wink and a nod, ‘You’re a great, loyal employee, here’s a raise.’”

In response to questions from ProPublica, a Trump campaign official said that any raises or other benefits provided to witnesses were the result of their taking on more work due to the campaign or his legal cases heating up, or because they took on new duties.

The official added that Trump himself isn’t involved in determining how much campaign staffers are paid, and that compensation is entirely delegated to the campaign’s top leaders. “The president is not involved in the decision-making process,” the official said. “I would argue Trump doesn’t know what we’re paid.”

Campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said in a statement that “the 2024 Trump campaign is the most well-run and professional operation in political history. Any false assertion that we’re engaging in any type of behavior that may be regarded as tampering is absurd and completely fake.”

Trump’s attorney, David Warrington, sent ProPublica a cease-and-desist letter demanding this article not be published. The letter warned that if the outlet and its reporters “continue their reckless campaign of defamation, President Trump will evaluate all legal remedies.”

It’s possible the benefits are more widespread. Payments from Trump campaign committees are disclosed publicly, but the finances of his businesses are mostly private, so raises, bonuses and other payments from those entities are not typically disclosed.

ProPublica did not find evidence that Trump personally approved the pay increases or other benefits. But Trump famously keeps close watch over his operations and prides himself on penny-pinching. One former aide compared working for the Trump Organization, his large company, to “a small family business” where every employee “in some sense reports to Mr. Trump.” Former aides have said Trump demands unwavering loyalty from subordinates, even when their duties require independence. After his Attorney General Jeff Sessions decided to recuse himself against then-President Trump’s wishes, paving the way for a special counsel to investigate his campaign’s ties to Russia, Trump fumed about being crossed. “Where’s my Roy Cohn?” Trump asked, referring to the notorious former aide to Sen. Joseph McCarthy who later served as Trump’s faithful fixer long before Trump became president.

Some Noteworthy Witnesses Who Received Benefits

Boris Epshteyn

Trump campaign adviser Benefit: Pay more than doubled

Susie Wiles

Head of Trump campaign Benefit: Payments to firm spiked, campaign hired her daughter

Margo Martin

Trump aide Benefit: Received a roughly 20% raise

Dan Scavino

Trump aide Benefit: Appointed to board of Trump Media

Jennifer Little

Trump attorney Benefit: Payments to her law firm dramatically increased

Evan Corcoran

Trump lawyer Benefit: Payments to his law firm dramatically increased

Allen Weisselberg

Trump Organization executive Benefit: Lucrative severance package

In addition to the New York case in which Trump was convicted last week, stemming from hidden payments to a porn star, Trump is facing separate charges federally and in Georgia for election interference and in another federal case for mishandling classified documents.

Attempts to exert undue influence on witnesses have been a repeated theme of Trump-related investigations and criminal cases over the years.

Trump’s former campaign manager and former campaign adviser were convicted on federal witness tampering charges in 2018 and 2019. The campaign adviser had told a witness to “do a ‘Frank Pentangeli,’” referencing a character in “The Godfather Part II” who lies to a Senate committee investigating organized crime. Trump later pardoned both men in the waning days of his presidency. (He did not pardon a co-defendant of the campaign manager who had cooperated with the government.)

During the congressional investigation into the storming of the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, a former White House staffer testified that she got a call from a colleague the night before an interview with investigators. The colleague told her Trump’s chief of staff “wants me to let you know that he knows you’re loyal and he knows you’ll do the right thing tomorrow and that you’re going to protect him and the boss.” (A spokesperson for the chief of staff denied that he tried to influence testimony.)

Last year, Trump himself publicly discouraged a witness from testifying in the Georgia case. Trump posted on social media that he had read about a Georgia politician who “will be testifying before the Fulton County Grand Jury. He shouldn’t.”

One witness has said publicly that, when he quit working for Trump in the midst of the classified documents criminal investigation, he was offered golf tournament tickets, a lawyer paid for by Trump and a new job that would have come with a raise. The witness, a valet and manager at Mar-a-Lago, had direct knowledge of the handling of the government documents at the club, the focus of one of the criminal cases against the former president. “I’m sure the boss would love to see you,” the employee, Brian Butler, recalled Trump’s property manager telling him. (The episode was first reported by CNN.)

In an interview with ProPublica, Butler, who declined the offers, said he looked at them “innocently for a while.” But when he added up the benefits plus the timing, he thought “it could be them trying to get me back in the circle.”

One Trump aide who plays a key role in multiple cases is a lawyer named Boris Epshteyn, who became an important figure in Trump’s effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election.

A college classmate of one of Trump’s sons who worked on the 2016 campaign and briefly in the White House, Epshteyn was involved in assembling sets of false electors around the country after Trump lost the 2020 election, and Epshteyn’s emails and texts have come up repeatedly in investigations.

In 2022, he testified before the Georgia grand jury that later indicted Trump on charges related to attempts to overturn the election. The FBI seized his phone, and in April 2023 he was interviewed by the federal special counsel.

In early August 2023, the special counsel charged Trump with conspiracy to defraud the United States and conspiracy to obstruct an official proceeding as part of an effort to overturn the 2020 election. A couple weeks later, the Georgia grand jury handed down an indictment accusing Trump of racketeering as part of a plot to overturn the election results in the state. From November 2022 to August 2023, the Trump campaign had paid Epshteyn’s company an average of $26,000 per month. The month after the indictments, his pay hit a new high, $50,000, and climbed in October to $53,500 per month, where it has remained ever since.

Epshteyn is a contractor with the campaign and the payments go to his company, Georgetown Advisory, which is based at a residential home in New Jersey. The company does not appear to have an office or other employees. Campaign filings say the payments are for “communications & legal consulting.”

Kenneth Notter, an attorney at MoloLamken who specializes in white-collar defense, said that a defendant should have a good explanation for a major increase in pay like Epshteyn’s. “Any change in treatment of a witness is something that gets my heart rate up as a lawyer.”

Boris Epshteyn, second from right, appeared at a Manhattan criminal court where former President Donald Trump, left, was facing charges. (Todd Heisler/The New York Times/Bloomberg/Getty Images)

Already in early 2023, months before the pay bump, a Trump campaign spokesperson described Epshteyn to The New York Times as “a deeply valued member of the team” who had “done a terrific job shepherding the legal efforts fighting” the investigations of Trump. The Times reported then that Epshteyn spoke to Trump multiple times per day.

Timothy Parlatore, an attorney who left Trump’s defense team last year citing infighting, found Epshteyn’s large raise baffling. He questioned Epshteyn’s fitness to handle high-stakes criminal defense given his scant experience in the area. “He tries to coordinate all the legal efforts, which is a role he’s uniquely unqualified for,” Parlatore said.

The Trump campaign official told ProPublica that Epshteyn got a pay raise because Trump’s legal cases intensified and, as a result, Epshteyn had more legal work to coordinate. The official declined to say if he started working more hours: “All of us are working 24/7, ... every second of the day.” Epshteyn declined to comment on the record.

Even after the major pay increase, Epshteyn has not devoted all of his working time to the Trump campaign. He has continued to consult for other campaigns in recent months, disclosure filings show. And in November, he got a new role as managing director of a financial services firm in New York called Kenmar Securities, regulatory filings show.

Payments to Boris Epshteyn’s Company Jump Note: Payments are to Epshteyn’s company, Georgetown Advisory. Apparent travel reimbursements were removed from two 2023 payments.

Other employees in Trump’s political orbit have followed a similar pattern — including his top aide.

Trump campaign head Susie Wiles, a Florida political consultant, was present when Trump allegedly went beyond improperly holding onto classified documents and showed them to people lacking proper security clearances.

When Trump was indicted on June 8, 2023, over his handling of the documents, the indictment described Wiles as a “PAC representative.” It described Trump allegedly showing her a classified map related to a military operation, acknowledging “that he should not be showing it” and warning her to “not get too close.”

That June, Right Coast Strategies, the political consulting firm Wiles founded, received its highest-ever monthly payment from the Trump campaign: $75,000, an amount the firm has equaled only once since.

Wiles had been a grand jury witness before the indictment. News reports indicated Wiles had told others that she continued to be loyal to Trump and only testified because she was forced to. (And, according to Wiles, Trump was told she was a witness sometime before the indictment’s June release.)

The Trump campaign official told ProPublica that the spike in payments was largely because Wiles was billing for previous months.

She also got a 20% raise that May, from $25,000 to $30,000 per month. “She went back and redid her contract,” the official said, adding that her role as a witness was not a factor in that raise.

A few months later, the Wiles family got more good news. Wiles’ daughter Caroline, who had done some work for Trump’s first campaign and in the White House, where she reportedly left one job because she didn’t pass a background check, was hired by his campaign. Her salary: $222,000, making her currently the fourth-highest-paid staffer. (The Trump campaign official said her salary included a monthly housing stipend.)

Susie Wiles said she and another campaign official were responsible for hiring her daughter, who she said has an expertise in logistics and was brought on to handle arrangements for surrogates taking Trump’s place at events he couldn’t attend. Wiles said Trump wasn’t involved in the hire.

Caroline Wiles told ProPublica her mother’s position in the campaign played no role in her getting a job, but she declined to describe the circumstances around the job offer. “How did I get the job? Because I have earned it,” she said. “I don’t think it has anything to do with Susie.”

The indictment suggests Susie Wiles herself has been aware of efforts to keep potential witnesses in the fold. Soon after the FBI found classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, a Trump employee was asked in a group text chat that included Wiles to confirm that the club’s property manager “was loyal.”

Wiles told ProPublica she couldn’t talk about the details of the case, but she called the text message exchange “a nothing.”

More generally, she said she was unaware of the need to ensure employees who are witnesses do not appear to be receiving special treatment. “It’s the first time I’ve heard that’s best practice,” she said. “I don’t mind telling you I conduct myself in such a way that I don’t worry about any of that.” Trump, she said, had never talked to her about her role as a witness.

Less powerful aides who are witnesses have also enjoyed career advances.

Margo Martin, a Trump aide who, like Wiles, allegedly witnessed Trump showing off what he described as a secret military document, got a significant raise not long after the classified documents case heated up with the search at Mar-a-Lago.

According to the indictment, Trump told Martin and others the military plan was “secret” and “highly confidential.” “As president I could have declassified it,” he allegedly told the group. “Now I can’t, you know, but this is still a secret.”

A few months before her grand jury appearance, she moved from the payroll of a Trump political committee to a job with the campaign as it was launching. Martin was given a roughly 20% pay raise, from $155,000 to $185,000 per year, according to the Trump campaign. Campaign finance filings show a much larger pay increase for Martin, but the Trump campaign said the filings are misleading because of a difference in how payroll taxes and withholdings are reported by the two committees.

Because of that quirk, it’s impossible to know who else got raises and how big they were. The campaign official said that at least one other witness also got a pay raise but did not provide details about how much and when.

Dan Scavino is a longtime communications aide who Trump once called the “most powerful man in politics” because he could post for Trump on the president’s social media accounts. Scavino was among the small group of staff who had an up-close view of Trump during the final weeks of his presidency — a focus of the congressional inquiry into the Jan. 6 insurrection and the criminal probe into election interference.

In August 2021, a month after the congressional investigation began, securities filings show that the parent company behind Truth Social, Trump’s social media company, gave Scavino a consulting deal that ultimately paid out $240,000 a year.

The next month, lawmakers issued a subpoena to Scavino to ask him what the White House knew about the potential for violence before the attacks and what actions Trump took to try to overturn the election results. The panel gave Scavino a half-dozen extensions while negotiating with him, but he ultimately refused to testify or turn over documents and was held in contempt.

In September 2022, Scavino received a subpoena to testify before the criminal grand jury in the federal election interference probe. This time, he wasn’t able to get out of it and was seen leaving the Washington, D.C., courthouse in May 2023.

Bits of Scavino’s testimony were reported by ABC News, citing unnamed sources. Though his recollections of Trump from Jan. 6 painted the former president unfavorably, his reported testimony didn’t include significant new information. He testified Trump was “very angry” that day, and, despite pleas from aides to calm the Capitol rioters, Trump for hours “was just not interested” in taking action to stop it. When the testimony was reported, Trump’s spokesperson said Scavino is one of the former president’s “most loyal allies, and his actual testimony shows just how strong President Trump is positioned in this case.”

Between getting the subpoena and testifying, Scavino was given a seat on the board of the Trump social media company.

Scavino was also granted a $600,000 retention bonus and a $4 million “executive promissory note” paid in shares, according to SEC filings. The company’s public filings do not make clear when these deals were put in place.

As one of the few aides who Trump was with on Jan. 6, Scavino is likely to be called if Trump’s election interference cases go to trial.

Reached by ProPublica, Scavino declined to answer questions about how he got the board seat and other benefits from the Trump media company. “It has nothing to do,” he said, “with any investigation.”

A Trump Media spokesperson declined to answer questions about who made the decision to give Scavino the benefits and why, but said, “It appears this article will comprise utterly false insinuations.”

When Atlanta attorney Jennifer Little was hired to represent Trump in his Georgia election interference case, it marked the high point of her career.

A former local prosecutor who started her own practice, she had previously taken on far more modest cases. Highlights on her website include a biker who fell because of a pothole, a child investigated for insensitive social media comments and drunk drivers with “DUI’s as high as .19.” Little had made headlines for some higher profile cases, like a candidate for lieutenant governor accused of sexual harassment, but everything on her resume paled in comparison to representing a former president accused of plotting to reverse the outcome of an election.

Then in May 2022, her job got even more complicated when Trump pulled her into his brewing showdown with the Justice Department over classified documents at Mar-a-Lago. Despite multiple requests, Trump had not returned all of the documents he had brought with him from the White House to his Florida club. The Justice Department had just elevated the matter by subpoenaing Trump for the records, and Trump wanted her advice.

Little told him, according to news reports, that unlike the government’s prior requests, a subpoena meant he could face criminal charges if he didn’t comply.

When Trump ultimately did not turn over the records and the criminal investigation intensified, Little’s involvement in that pivotal meeting got her called before a grand jury by federal prosecutors.

Some of her testimony before that grand jury, which determines whether someone will be indicted, may have been favorable for Trump. In one reported instance, Little’s recollections undermined contemporaneous documentary evidence that was damaging to Trump. Investigators had obtained notes from another lawyer at the May 2022 meeting indicating Trump suggested they not “play ball” with federal authorities: “Wouldn’t it be better if we just told them we don’t have anything here?”

Little told the grand jury she remembered the question more benignly, according to an ABC News story that cited anonymous sources, and said she couldn’t recall Trump recommending they not “play ball.”

Trump has since been indicted over his handling of the classified documents. If the case goes to trial, Little’s testimony could prove crucial as the two sides try to make their case about Trump's consciousness of guilt and whether he purposely withheld documents. (Trump has pleaded not guilty in that case and has said he did nothing wrong.)

Just after Little was forced to testify before the grand jury in March 2023, a Trump political action committee paid her $218,000, by far the largest payment she’d received while working for Trump. In the year after she became a witness, she has made at least $1.3 million from the Trump political committee, more than twice as much as she had during the year prior.

Little told ProPublica the large payment she received soon after she was compelled to testify was due to a lengthy motion she filed around then to block the release of the Georgia grand jury’s findings and prevent Trump from being indicted. Her hourly rate did not change, she said, the workload increased. The elevated payments in the year after she became a witness did coincide with the Georgia case heating up and Trump getting indicted.

The Trump campaign official said the spike in payments to Little after she became a witness was the result of her billing for multiple time periods at once.

Payments to Jennifer Little’s Law Firm Increase After She Becomes a Witness

A similar pattern played out for the other Trump lawyer present at the Mar-a-Lago meeting about the subpoena.

Evan Corcoran, a former federal prosecutor who specializes in white-collar criminal defense, was new to the team at the time. And it was his notes, obtained by investigators, that memorialized Trump suggesting they not “play ball.” His notes also included a description of Trump seeming to instruct him to withhold some sensitive documents from authorities when the former president made a “plucking motion.”

“He made a funny motion as though — well okay why don’t you take them with you to your hotel room and if there’s anything really bad in there, like, you know, pluck it out,” Corcoran’s notes read, according to the indictment.

Like Little, Corcoran tried to fight being forced to testify before a grand jury, asserting that as Trump’s lawyer, their communications were protected. But prosecutors were able to convince a judge that the protection didn’t apply because their legal advice was used to commit crimes.

Corcoran’s notes from his conversations with Trump formed the backbone of the eventual indictment, and his descriptions of those meetings are expected to be a critical component at trial. The lawyer made an initial appearance before the grand jury in January 2023 and appeared again in another session in March.

Around the time he was forced to be a witness, Corcoran recused himself from the classified documents case, but he continued to represent Trump on other matters. Nevertheless his firm’s compensation shot up for a few months.

Just days after his March grand jury testimony, the Trump campaign sent two payments to his firm totaling $786,000, the largest amount paid in a single day in his almost two years working for Trump. The firm brought in a total of $1.4 million in that four-week span, more than double its payments from any other comparable period during Corcoran’s time working for Trump.

Corcoran did not respond to questions from ProPublica. The Trump campaign official said the spike in payments came because the firm was billing for more hours of work as Trump’s cases ramped up. The official added that the number of lawyers from the firm working on the case may have increased but could not provide specifics.

The issue of witnesses who have received financial rewards from Trump has already come up at both of the former president’s New York trials.

In the civil fraud case last year, prosecutors questioned the Trump Organization’s former controller about the $500,000 in severance he had been promised after retiring earlier in the year. During his testimony, the former controller broke down in tears as he complained about allegations against an employer he loved and defended the valuations at the center of the case as “justified.” At the time of the testimony, he was still receiving his severance in installments.

Former chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg got a $2 million severance agreement in January 2023, four months after the New York attorney general sued Trump for financial fraud in his real estate business. The agreement contains a nondisparagement clause and language barring Weisselberg from voluntarily cooperating with investigators.

It came up in Trump’s hush money trial last month when prosecutors told the judge that the severance agreement was one of the reasons they would not call Weisselberg . He was still due several payments.

“The agreement seems to preclude us from talking to him or him talking to us at the risk of losing $750,000 of outstanding severance pay,” one prosecutor said.

In last year’s fraud trial, the judge wrote of the severance agreement, “The Trump Organization keeps Weisselberg on a short leash, and it shows.”

A Trump Organization spokesperson said in a statement that after Weisselberg and the controller announced their retirement plans, “the company agreed to pay them severance based on the number of years they worked at the company. President Trump played no role in that decision.” Weisselberg’s severance agreement was signed by Trump’s son Eric.

Another witness from the civil trial last year, longtime Trump friend and real estate executive Steve Witkoff, was called as an expert witness by Trump’s defense team, and he defended the Trump Organization real estate valuations at the heart of the case.

Two months after Witkoff’s testimony, Trump’s campaign for the first time started paying his company, the Witkoff Group, for air travel. The payments continued over several weeks, ultimately totalling more than $370,000.

The Trump campaign official confirmed the campaign used Witkoff’s private jet for multiple trips, including Trump’s visit to a stretch of the Texas border in February, saying it “appropriately reimbursed” him for the flights. The official said it sometimes used commercial charter jet services but opted for Witkoff’s plane because of “availability, space, and convenience.”

Witkoff and The Witkoff Group did not respond to requests for comment.

Do you have any information about Trump’s campaign or his businesses that we should know? Robert Faturechi can be reached by email at robert.faturechi@propublica.org and by Signal or WhatsApp at 213-271-7217. Justin Elliott can be reached by email at justin@propublica.org or by Signal or WhatsApp at 774-826-6240.

Headshot photos of Allen Weisselberg by Curtis Means/Daily Mail/Bloomberg/Getty Images; Evan Corcoran by Nathan Howard/Bloomberg/Getty Images; Dan Scavino by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images; Susie Wiles by Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post/Getty Images; Jennifer Little by Dennis Byron-Pool/Getty Images; Boris Epshteyn by Mandek Ngan/AFP/Getty Images; and Margo Martin by Curtis Means-Pool/Getty Images.

Agnel Philip contributed data analysis.

Graphics by Lena Groeger.

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Lea o escuche la versión en español.

This guide will be released in Spanish in several formats to make this information more widely accessible. If you want to receive printed booklets that you or your organization can share with dairy workers in Wisconsin, or if you want to be notified when we post related videos on TikTok and YouTube, sign up here.

We are reporters at ProPublica, a nonprofit investigative news organization. Over the past two years, we have reported on the lives of dairy workers in Wisconsin and the dangers they face on the job.

Dairy workers are excluded from many state and federal legal protections that help other workers. As a result, if they are injured on the job, they often face obstacles to getting medical care or the time needed to recover.

Many dairy workers have seen relatives or co-workers lose their jobs and get kicked out of farm housing after an injury. Others have ended up with disfigured bodies and massive medical debt.

Many are undocumented. They worry about being deported if they speak up about an injury.

We heard these concerns repeatedly in our interviews with more than 100 immigrant workers. We know people often feel hopeless.

But while there are real challenges, our reporting has shown us that for some workers, there can be a path toward getting treatment after an injury. Here is some of what we found:

• Workers who are injured on larger farms have more protections. This is because of an insurance system called workers’ compensation. You can benefit even if you are undocumented.
• The workers’ compensation system is complex and difficult to navigate. Employers sometimes discourage workers from filing claims. Getting a lawyer can be critical, especially if you have a permanent disability.
• Workers who are injured on smaller farms usually can’t access workers’ compensation. The only way to compel an employer to cover medical costs is to file a lawsuit. These lawsuits can be extremely difficult to win. Because of that, attorneys may not want to take your case.
• You may be able to access free or low-cost medical care. Ask about hospital charity, free clinics and a Wisconsin insurance plan called BadgerCare Plus.

Few of the workers we’ve interviewed understood their rights after an injury. This guide is our attempt to explain your options, as limited as they are. We also want to answer questions that many workers have asked based on situations they’ve found themselves in. It is based on conversations with workers, attorneys, health care providers, community advocates, interpreters, researchers and farmers. It covers what you can do before you get to a farm, how to navigate the workers’ compensation system, and your options if you get injured on a farm that doesn’t have workers’ compensation.

The guide is especially focused on the workers’ compensation system because it is one of the few areas where injured dairy workers have a right to medical care. We know this system has limitations and isn’t available to everybody. However many workers have found it to be useful, particularly if they get help from an attorney.

This guide does not provide legal or medical advice. We strongly encourage you to talk to a lawyer or a doctor about your situation. We’ll point you to some resources in the last section.

We welcome your thoughts and questions. Please feel free to write us an email or call us by phone or WhatsApp. Thank you.

Maryam Jameel: Maryam.Jameel@propublica.org or 630-885-6883

Melissa Sanchez: Melissa.Sanchez@propublica.org or 872-444-0011

What to Know Before You Start Working on Dairy Farms

Farming in general has one of the highest fatality rates of industries in the U.S. Almost every year in Wisconsin, dairy farmers or their employees die on the job, crushed under tractors or drowned in manure lagoons or trampled by cows.

Injuries are even more common. But they are not always reported. That makes it impossible to accurately compare the dangers on dairy farms with other types of jobs. In our reporting, however, most workers told us they had been injured on the job. “If you haven’t been injured,” one former worker said, “then you haven’t really worked on a farm.” Cows can be unpredictable; workers told us they’d been kicked, stepped on and smashed against barn walls by the 1,500-pound animals.

We have spoken to several workers who lost fingers inside of machinery, a man whose legs were crushed by heavy metal gates and a woman who got trampled and thrown over a fence by a bull. Other workers have chronic pain from the repetitive motions of attaching tubes to cow teats hundreds of times a day.

In the winter, temperatures in Wisconsin can drop below zero, with high winds, snow and ice. Many workers have suffered serious injuries after they slipped on ice-covered concrete floors. Others have suffered frostbite.

Medical and public health officials said some workers develop infections and other issues from their exposure to animal feces and other harmful substances common on farms.

How can you find out whether a particular farm is a safe place to work?

No government agency rates dairy farms on safety. In fact, even when workers die or are injured, dairy farms are not always inspected.

There is no guarantee that you will be safe on any farm. But farms can take steps to protect their workers and make sure they receive the medical treatment they need after an injury. One of the best ways to learn about safety issues on a farm is by talking to current or former employees.

Some questions you can ask:

• What kind of training do workers get when they are hired?

• Did you feel that the training was enough to help you do your job safely?

• What is the pace of work? Are there enough workers to do the job?

• Can cows easily kick you as you milk them?

• Can you describe a recent injury that happened to you or a coworker and how the supervisor responded? Did that worker get medical care or time off to heal?

• Do you know whether the farm has workers’ compensation insurance?

• How do the supervisors treat you? Do they speak to you respectfully?

We have also found that local Latino grocery stores can be good places to learn more about specific farms. Workers cash their checks at these businesses and often share information about work conditions with the clerks and owners. Ask them about a farm’s reputation and if there is anything they think you should know.

One sign that a farm may be a good place to work is if workers stay there for a long time.

Are farms required to help pay for a worker’s medical care after an injury?

The answer depends on how many workers the farm employs.

In general, if the farm has six or more employees, it should have a type of insurance called workers’ compensation that is supposed to cover these costs. Workers’ compensation is different from medical insurance. (If you are counting how many workers a farm has, don’t count the farm owners and their close relatives who work on the farm.)

If a farm has fewer than six employees, it does not have to have workers’ compensation under state rules. Workers who are hurt at these farms have only one legal avenue to get help paying for medical care. They may be able to file a lawsuit. (See the “Resources other than workers’ compensation” section for more information.)

How can I learn if a farm has workers’ compensation insurance?

You can ask your employer or look it up yourself online. If the farm has workers’ compensation insurance, it should be listed here: https://www.wcrb.org/coverage-lookup/. But the site, run by the Wisconsin Compensation Rating Bureau, is only available in English.

You’ll need to know the farm’s name or its address to do a search. If you don’t find the farm listed, you can email the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development, which oversees the workers’ compensation system, at WCINS@dwd.wisconsin.gov, or call 608-266-3046. If you speak Spanish, you can ask for an interpreter.

I don’t know the name of my employer. How do I find that?

You may know a farm by a nickname. To find out a farm’s official name, look at the upper left-hand corner of your paycheck, above the address. Or you can check the main entrance, where many farms have signs with their name.

I Was Injured on a Large Farm That Has Workers’ Compensation. What Do I Need to Know?

State officials and lawyers say you should tell your employer right away that you got hurt and get the medical treatment you need. The Department of Workforce Development said any delays may hurt your workers’ compensation case.

Gabriel Manzano Nieves, a workers’ compensation attorney in Madison, said many people he works with don’t want to report what seems like a minor injury. He said he’s had clients who thought at first that they had a sore shoulder or a sprain. Weeks later a doctor told them that they had a permanent injury. He added: “Later their employer might say, ‘How do I know this didn’t happen at home?’ Reporting time is really important for proving it happened at work.”

How is workers’ compensation supposed to work?

1. After you report your injury, your employer is supposed to file a claim with their insurance company within seven days. (Your employer can be fined if they delay filing a claim on purpose.) Your medical provider — usually that’s your doctor — can also file a claim for you.
2. Then the insurer is supposed to report this information to the state.
3. Once the claim is filed, the insurer will usually send you a letter or call and ask for your permission to get your medical records related to the injury.
4. The insurer will look at your records to decide whether to accept the claim and pay the medical costs. The company may also send you to an independent doctor or nurse who may make a different decision about your injury and treatment.
5. You may be entitled to some of your pay if you need days off work to recover from your injury. You should get a check from your employer’s insurance carrier, usually 14 days after your injury or illness, though lawyers say it can take longer.

What should I tell medical providers?

Explain how you got injured and that it happened at work. Otherwise you may not get workers’ compensation. State officials recommend that you say this before you get treated. Give the name of the farm and the workers’ compensation insurer, if you know it, so that the hospital or doctor’s office can bill the insurer. Attorneys suggested that if you get any medical bills, you send them to the insurer.

Be open and detailed about your pain so your doctor can accurately assess your health. We know some workers sometimes don’t tell their doctors everything because they are embarrassed, they want to seem strong, they fear the cost of treatment, or for other reasons. Many other workers say their employers have told them not to tell the hospital that their injury was work-related in order to avoid filing a workers’ compensation claim. In some cases, employers promise to pay the medical bills out of pocket.

You have the right to choose your own doctor and to be alone with them during your visits; that means your employer does not have a right to be in the room if you do not want them there. Several attorneys said you can also ask your doctor if they would recommend any restrictions on how or how much you work, such as limiting how much weight you carry or how many hours a day you work.

I’m being told by my doctor that I can return to work, but I don’t think I have completely healed. What can I do?

The Department of Workforce Development encourages workers to try to return to work anyway. “You will be in a stronger position to obtain additional benefits if you attempted to return than if you refused an offer of work,” state officials said. But if you have work restrictions, tell your employer you are willing to work within them, attorneys said. And if you feel any pain, tell your supervisor. Your employer should report it to their insurance company. Also, see a doctor to reassess your health, attorneys said.

I’m undocumented. Does my immigration status affect my eligibility for workers’ compensation?

No. In Wisconsin, your immigration status does not affect your eligibility. Nearly every part of the Wisconsin Workers’ Compensation Act applies to workers regardless of their immigration status.

“Whether you’re in the country legally or not, it’s not relevant,” said Douglas Phebus, an employment attorney who has represented dozens of dairy workers in Wisconsin.

However, he said workers have told him their bosses threatened to get them deported after they asked about workers’ compensation. “That’s ridiculous but it’s scary,” Phebus said.

Deporting undocumented immigrants who are not a threat to national security or public safety is not a priority for the Biden administration, according to official guidance.

The state’s Department of Workforce Development said it does not share information with federal immigration authorities.

Many undocumented immigrants work under fake names and Social Security numbers. Martha Burke, a workers’ compensation attorney, said that when she fills out workers’ compensation paperwork, she often includes both names that workers use. State officials said workers don’t have to provide a Social Security number.

Does workers’ compensation help pay for my lost wages after an injury?

If you need less than three days to recover, you won’t be paid for that time off of work. State law only allows payment to start on the fourth day off from work. You could get paid two-thirds of your wages.

What happens if the insurance company denies my claim?

At this stage — as medical bills may be piling up — many workers and advocates suggest talking to an attorney.

You can also call the Department of Workforce Development’s workers’ compensation division to discuss problems with a claim. (See the resources page at the end of this guide to find this contact information.) You can ask state officials to review your claim and try to resolve your dispute with the insurance company, or ask for a formal hearing. The vast majority of workers who ask for hearings have attorneys, state officials said.

Am I entitled to compensation if my injury leads to a permanent disability?

You may qualify for other benefits. How much depends in part on how much a doctor thinks your injury will affect your ability to work and earn money in the future.

Doctors might not try to determine if your injury is permanent or note that in your file unless you ask them to. You have to be your own advocate, said Marisol González Castillo, a personal injury attorney who used to specialize in workers’ compensation.

To get permanent disability benefits, you may need help from an attorney. We spoke to two workers whose fingers were amputated in farm accidents. Both got their initial medical bills paid but didn’t get any permanent disability compensation. Years later, each of them wondered if they should have looked for an attorney to help them make a claim.

State law gives workers six years after their injury or most recent workers’ compensation payment to file for permanent disability benefits. (If your injury happened before March 2, 2016, you have 12 years after the date of injury to file a claim.)

Somebody I know died at work. Is their family entitled to any benefits?

The dead worker’s dependents, usually their spouse or children, may be able to qualify for death benefits and burial expenses from the workers’ compensation insurer. Employers are supposed to report deaths to the state within one day.

What if the farm where I work has six or more employees but doesn’t have workers’ compensation insurance?

You can file a claim to request benefits through the state’s Uninsured Employers Fund (UEF). You must call (608) 266-3046 to ask for an application. There is an option for Spanish speakers. You will be asked to give them certain documentation, such as copies of check stubs and medical records.

Some attorneys said you may want to collect information to help the state confirm the actual number of workers on the farm; this could include the names of your coworkers or copies of work schedules.

What You Can Do Outside of the Workers’ Compensation System

Thousands of farm workers are excluded from the state’s workers’ compensation system because the farms where they work are too small to be required to have insurance. In addition, many workers who get injured on large farms told us their employers refused to file a claim for them. The workers said they didn’t get medical care because they were afraid their employer would retaliate against them.

Given this reality, we wanted to explain what your options are, even though there aren’t very many, and point you to resources that could help you.

What should I know if I get injured on a small farm?

You are not automatically entitled to get help from your employer. This means you could end up with thousands of dollars in medical bills. Hospitals can sue you over unpaid medical debt, which could lead to a court-ordered garnishment of your wages. Garnishment is when money is automatically taken out of your paycheck to pay down your debt.

We know of several farmers who have paid out of pocket for their workers’ medical costs. So you should ask for help, several workers and attorneys said. But the only legal avenue to get your employer to pay your medical bills is to file a personal injury lawsuit.

Given their limited protections, workers who get injured on small farms are in a difficult situation, said Matthew Keifer, a doctor who specializes in occupational safety and is the former director of the National Farm Medicine Center. He said workers should think about finding a job on a larger farm where they would have workers’ compensation. “I know a lot of small farmers who are just wonderful people and would bend over backwards for their employees,” he said. “But there’s a lot that are not.”

What is a personal injury lawsuit?

These are lawsuits against the employer that ask for money for an injury that a worker thinks was the employers’ fault. Workers can also ask for more money for their pain and suffering.

But unlike in workers’ compensation cases, you have to prove that your employer was to blame for your injury. For example, you may have to show that your employer knew about a workplace hazard but did not fix it.

It can be hard to prove that someone was negligent, said Phebus, the employment attorney. He said he turns away about two-thirds of the dairy workers who call his office asking about personal injury lawsuits.

“People come to see us and they got hurt, but it wasn’t any particular act of negligence,” he said. “It’s just that farming is very dangerous.”

One worker who was injured by a bull on a small farm said she spoke to several attorneys before she found one who took her case.

Brian Laule, a personal injury attorney in River Falls, agreed that these cases can be difficult. But he said workers should not feel hopeless. Instead he encouraged workers to do their research and call several attorneys. “Run the situation by them,” he said. “You can reach out to attorneys for free and find out if you have any recourse.”

How can I find affordable medical care?

You may have to pay your own medical bills. Here are some programs that may help you:

• Charity care: Many hospitals offer charity care programs that cover some or all medical bills for uninsured, low-income patients. You will likely need to fill out an application and share information about your income to find out if you qualify. Ask hospital staff if this is an option.
• Payment plans: Several medical professionals and attorneys also recommended that workers ask about payment plans to avoid having their bills sent to collections. (This is when debt collectors try to make you pay and sometimes charge fees or interest that can make your debt bigger.) Many hospitals have “patient navigators” on staff who can help you apply for charity care or get on a payment plan.
• BadgerCare Plus: This is a state public health insurance program for low-income residents. Undocumented immigrants who have children can get coverage in medical emergencies. (You can also qualify if you are pregnant.) You can call your local health agency to find out if you qualify. Visit this page and click on your county to find the phone number. If you speak Spanish, you can ask for an interpreter.
• Free and low-cost clinics: We also know many workers have long-term pain from repetitive motion injuries, which is damage caused by doing the same actions, such as milking cows, over and over. You may be able to get medical care for these and other nonemergency injuries from “safety net” clinics for free or at a low cost. Wisconsin’s Department of Health Services maintains a page with the names, addresses and phone numbers of these clinics across the state. These facilities are not where you should go if you have serious or life-threatening injuries.
• Urgent care clinics: Hospital emergency room visits can be extremely expensive, warned Aida Bise, the director of migrant and seasonal agricultural worker services for Family Health La Clinica, a community health clinic in Wautoma. For minor injuries, Bise says that workers should think about going to an urgent care clinic. “These are way cheaper,” she said.

One worker whose shoulder was injured when a cow slammed him against a wall on a small farm in 2022 said his employer refused to pay his hospital bills. As a result, the man, an undocumented and uninsured immigrant from Mexico, didn’t initially get the treatment he needed.

“It’s an immense, intolerable pain that’s hard to describe,” he said. “I just want to get the bills paid and recover.” More than five months passed before he got treatment; a community advocate helped him get surgery and other treatment covered by the hospital’s charity care.

Where can I report unsafe workplace conditions?

The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) is in charge of enforcing workplace safety laws in Wisconsin. It investigates deaths and injuries that happen on the job. You can file a confidential complaint online or call 1-800-321-6742.

Not every complaint will lead to an on-site inspection, which is when an OSHA official comes to the farm and checks for safety hazards. Once again, workers on small farms have fewer protections. If a farm has fewer than 11 employees, federal law may ban OSHA from investigating deaths, injuries or complaints. (Read our story about inconsistencies in OSHA's work on small farms.)

What to know about retaliation after an injury

We have talked to many workers who were fired, kicked out of farm housing or threatened with deportation after an injury.

It can be hard for workers to challenge these actions. Each case is different, so you may want to talk to an attorney.

If you lose your housing: Your rights depend on whether you’re considered a tenant under Wisconsin law. You may be a tenant if you pay rent or if your landlord takes rent out of your wages.

• If you are a tenant: You cannot be forcibly removed from housing without a court order. You have a very short amount of time when you can defend against an eviction in court; several attorneys said you should call an attorney quickly if you want to challenge the process or if you have been forced out without a court order.
• Legal Action of Wisconsin has this explainer about tenants’ rights.
• If you are not a tenant: Your rights are more limited. Some attorneys said they have negotiated more time for their clients to move out of farm housing. Again, call an attorney early to explore your options.

If you got fired: If you believe that you were fired because an injury left you with a disability, you may be able to file a discrimination complaint with the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development’s equal rights division. Call 608-266-6860 to learn more; if you speak Spanish, you can request an interpreter. If you work on a farm with at least 15 employees, you may be able to file a discrimination charge with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Call 1-800-669-4000 to learn more; there is an option for Spanish speakers.

Separately, your employer can be penalized for refusing to hire you back after an injury because you filed a workers’ compensation claim.

We’ve talked to many workers who were not paid for their last week of work before getting fired. You can file a complaint with the Department of Workforce Development’s equal rights division to try to get your wages back. You can do that online here, though that form is not in Spanish. Or you can call 608-266-6860 and ask to speak to somebody in Spanish and have a complaint form mailed to you.

If you are worried about being deported: If you are in a dispute with your employer over unpaid wages or another workplace issue, or if you are cooperating with a labor-related investigation at your job, you may qualify for deferred action. This is a temporary protection from deportation. An OSHA investigation can count as a labor dispute. The agency would have to write a letter on your behalf to request deferred action. The U.S. Department of Labor has information about how this program works.

How to report retaliation: You have the right to file a whistleblower complaint with OSHA if you believe your employer retaliated against you for exercising certain rights, such as expressing concern over a workplace safety issue. You can file a complaint online or call 1-800-321-6742. These complaints are not confidential, which means your employer will know you filed one.

If two or more workers have come together to discuss collective concerns about their workplace — including safety or injuries — they have another protection against retaliation. They can file a complaint under the Wisconsin Employment Peace Act with the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission. Call 608-243-2424 to learn more; Spanish speakers need to request an interpreter. This process can be complex, even for people who don’t have a language barrier, several attorneys said; you may want to get an attorney or somebody who can help you file the complaint.

Other resources

There is no single place where you can get information about what to do if you get injured on a Wisconsin dairy farm. But we wanted to share a list of some of the resources we learned about that can be helpful.

Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development: This is the agency that oversees the state’s workers’ compensation system. You can call 608-266-1340 to speak to a specialist about problems with a claim, discuss late payments, ask for a hearing application, or talk about any other related issues. Spanish speakers can request an interpreter when they call.

Farmworker Project: This is part of the Legal Action of Wisconsin, a nonprofit organization that provides legal services to low-income residents. Attorneys can’t take every case but may be able to provide a consultation. They can also refer workers to bilingual private attorneys. You can call or text 920-279-7025 with questions. This phone number is also available on WhatsApp.

State Bar of Wisconsin: This organization has a search tool on its website that lets you look for attorneys by county and learn whether they speak a language besides English. The site is only available in English.

211 Wisconsin: If you are in Wisconsin, you can dial 2-1-1 and get connected to a free phone-based information service. It is available in Spanish. This program can connect you to specialists who can get you referrals for thousands of programs and services across the state. It is available 24 hours a day. The nonprofit United Way of Wisconsin manages this program.

Voces de la Frontera: This is the state’s largest immigrant rights organization. Voces offers workers’ rights training and has a network of advocates across the state who may be able to connect you to resources in your area. You can contact Voces at 414-643-1620.

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