AUBURN — A group of migrant workers has sued DeCoster Egg Farms alleging that their former employer failed to pay overtime wages.

The workers claim that they routinely worked more than 40 hours a week while employed at the egg farm in Turner that has a history of rocky relations with its mostly Hispanic work force.

The lawsuit says that farm owner Austin J. DeCoster violated state labor law by not paying them overtime wages of one and one-half times their hourly earnings.

The class-action lawsuit in Androscoggin County Superior Court lists three plaintiffs but says it was lodged on behalf of “all other similarly situated individuals.”

“The three named are just the tip of the iceberg,” said Curtis Webber, the workers’ lawyer.

DeCoster’s lawyer, Michael T. Healy, didn’t immediately return a call seeking comment.

State overtime laws do not apply to farm workers or those who process agricultural products, said Webber. A court must decide whether DeCoster employees who perform exclusively non-agricultural jobs, such as a mechanic named in the lawsuit, or those who do cleaning chores unrelated to their processing work, qualify for overtime wages, he said.

He said that DeCoster’s lawyer has taken the stance that all DeCoster employees are engaged in an agricultural enterprise and are exempt from overtime pay.

One plaintiff in the lawsuit is Mexican-born Jesus Garcia, who worked as a mechanic from August 1989 until December 1990. The lawsuit claims he worked between 40 and 60 hours a week repairing DeCoster’s trucks.

The other plaintiffs are Garcia’s wife, Maria C. Alfaro, and her sister, Marina B. Alfaro, both citizens of El Salvador. Aside from packing and candling eggs, the Alfaro sisters performed additional cleaning duties that at times extended their working days, the lawsuit said.

DeCoster Egg Farms, known as the world’s largest brown egg cultivator, has a history of troubled relations with its workers.

In 1992, the state Attorney General’s office sued DeCoster for violating the Maine Civil Rights Act after workers claimed that they were treated like “prisoners” and were not allowed to receive visitors in a DeCoster-owned trailer park.