H2a

A Washington, D.C. judge has set a January 28th hearing on arguments about a preliminary injunction to halt increases in the minimum wage for H2A workers.  That increase took effect one week ago.   The National Council for Agricultural Employers and a Nevada farm filed the lawsuit on January 7th against the Department of Labor.  Accordi...

The Employment Security Department has proposed a program in which Washington farmer would pay additional fees for using foreign workers.  The ESD said the additional funds would be used to beef up oversight of the H2A program.  It’s estimated that Washington farmers will hire roughly 30,000 foreign workers in 2018.   Accord...

So much attention in Washington D.C. has been over the 2018 Farm Bill, and getting that piece of legislation approved and on to the President by the end of the month.  But, another important topic is waiting in the wings in D.C., and that’s addressing Ag labor needs.   R...

Now that the Labor Day holiday is behind us, lawmakers in D.C. can focus their efforts on agricultural labor.  The Ag and Legal Workforce Act of 2018, supported by Representative Dan Newhouse, the American Farm Bureau Federation, and others in the Ag community would replace the H-2A program with a new H-2C program.  ...

Last week a bipartisan group of Representatives introduced the Ag and Legal Workforce Act.  Representative Dan Newhouse said this new legislation would replace the “outdated” H2A system with a new H2C which would be available to both season and year round agriculture employers.  Newhouse added...

A complete overhaul of the American agricultural guest worker program is a major part of a House of Representatives’ plan to fix DACA.  DACA is currently tied up in an immigration reform battle on Capitol Hill.   Virginia Republican Bob Goodlatte, as well as three other Republicans, recently introduced the “Securing America’s Future Act.”  The bill has several provisio...

A bill introduced in the Senate last week would give farmworkers a path to legal status and citizenship.  California Senators, Democrats Dianne Feinstein and Kamala Harris, introduced the legislation last week that would shield farmworkers who are in the country illegally from deportation and create a path to citizenship, according to the L.A. T...

Most fruit growers use the piece rate form of payment, where workers are paid by the amount of fruit they bring in daily.  However, the piece rate has been the focus on recent lawsuits, claiming workers were denied needed breaks under the current system.  In...

A bill introduced earlier this month into the House of Representatives (H.R. 281) is titled the Family Farm Relief Act, dealing specifically with immigration.  Politico’s Morning Ag Report says the legislation is sponsored by New York Republicans Elise Stefanik and Chris Collins and would move the H2A immigration program from the Department of Labor to the Department of Agriculture.   S... Read Mo