YAKIMA, Wash. — A judge has ordered one of the nation's largest labor contractors and two growers in central Washington's Yakima Valley to pay more than 600 farm workers nearly $1.9 million in damages for federal labor law violations.

The workers are entitled to about $2,000 to $4,500 each from Global Horizons Inc., Valley Fruit Orchards of Wapato and Green Acre Farms of Harrah under the decision issued Thursday by U.S. District Judge Alan A. McDonald.

Last year Global Horizon agreed to pay $156,995 in back wages and $135,450 in civil fines to settle claims involving 88 Thai agricultural workers for work in Hawai'i. However, the company backed out of the deal, claiming the Labor Department issued a news release wrongly describing the settlement as a judgment.

The latest class-action order stemmed mostly from a complaint that the growers, working through Global Horizons, wrongly displaced farm workers with guest laborers from Thailand in 2004 under the H-2A program, which allows employers to import foreign labor if they can demonstrate a lack of local workers.

McDonald ruled there was evidence of six violations of federal law, including workers being fired for failing to meet productivity requirements they hadn't been told about.