"These foreign workers have some of teh hardest jobs in Idaho. Are they mistreated, too?"

...

More than 600 herders tend sheep for ranchers across Idaho in environments that make them almost invisible to much of the public: working alone or in pairs, camped along the distant slopes of some of the state’s most remote public lands. Most come from Peru, Mexico or other South American countries...

The Idaho Department of Labor helps ranchers in the state hire foreign workers for jobs U.S. workers won’t apply for, such as sheepherding. That means they help ranchers with job postings.

The agency is also expected to help enforce worker protection laws by inspecting sheepherder housing and accepting complaints, often translated from Spanish, on behalf of workers. Those complaints are generally forwarded to the federal Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division, a law enforcement agency that conducts fact-finding investigations. If employers show a pattern of abuse or an unwillingness to cooperate, their ability to retain workers can be revoked...

In interviews with four sheepherders, who the Statesman has elected not to identify because they fear retribution from their employers, the Statesman noted at least three circumstances that a leading federal labor department enforcement official said were likely violations of employment law. Interviews with sheepherders were conducted in Spanish through an interpreter...

Ranchers could not “afford to run this business without captive foreign labor,” Johnson said. “They cannot pay a fair wage and provide decent housing, living conditions and make a profit.”...

In a statement, Idaho Department of Labor Director Jani Revier said 12 employees monitor farmworker conditions and “make sure farmers meet their obligations for providing fresh drinking water and a safe and sanitary work environment.” She said those employees sometimes help farmworkers file complaints, and that the agency follows federal rules when a law enforcement agency determines bosses violated employment laws, which require the department to begin the process of ceasing to help them get more workers...