empowering farmworkers to improve their living and working conditions since 1981

Reports & Articles

Resources - Articles & Reports

Farmworker Justice Reports

Weeding out Abuses: Recommendations for a law-abiding farm labor system 

Litany of Abuses: Why we need more, not fewer, labor protections in the H-2A agricultural guestworker program 

Farmworker Justice, National Employment Law Project Report

From Orchards to the Internet: Confronting Contingent Work Abuses , March 2002, with Catherine K. Ruckelshaus of the National Employment Law Project; a report funded by the Ford Foundation based on the Subcontracted Worker Initiative Strategy Forums, co-sponsored by Farmworker Justice and NELP, and held in Washington, D.C. and Berkeley, Calif.

Governmental Reports

NAWS Report on Farmworker Demographics. Findings from the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS) 2001 - 2002. A Demographic and Employment Profile of United States Farm Workers. U.S. Department of Labor, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy, Office of Programmatic Policy, Research Report No. 9. March 2005.

USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) Reports The USDA NASS quarterly report on farm labor includes the survey of farm wages on which the DOL bases its H-2A adverse effect wage rate. All NASS reports are available free of charge. The most recent National Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) reports on hired farmworkers are available here.

Department of Labor Reports:

Report to Congress, The Agricultural Labor Market - Status and Recommendations, December 2000.

"A Profile of U.S. Farm Workers," 1997 report by the Department of Labor Office of the Assistant Secretary for Policy.

U.S. General Accounting Office (GAO) Reports on farmworkers and the H-2A guestworker program:

The H-2A Program: Changes Could Improve Services to Employers and Better Protect Workers (Dec. 31, 1997)

H-2A Agricultural Guestworkers: Status of Changes to Improve Program Services (June 15, 2000)

"Pesticides: Improvements Needed to Ensure the Safety of Farmworkers and Their Children" RCED-00-40. 27 pp. plus 3 appendices (7 pp.) March 14, 2000.

Non-Governmental Reports

The International Labor Organization, has published materials on agricultural workers. These reports include:

"Wage Workers in Agriculture: Conditions of Employment and Work," Geneva, TMAWW/1996, and the related "Note on the Proceedings: Tripartite Meeting on Improving the Conditions of employment and Work of Agricultural Wage Workers in the Context of Economic Restructuring," Geneva, 23-27 September 1996, TMAWW/1996/14.

"Safety and Health in Agriculture," Report VI (1), International Labour Conference, 88th Session 2000, Sixth Item on the Agenda, Geneva 1999.

"The Rights of Migrant Workers: A Guide to ILO Standards for the Use of Migrant Workers and Their Organizations," Geneva 1986 (not available online).