FJ's Legal & Advocacy Skills in Demand in H-2A Program
FJ's Legal & Advocacy Skills in Demand in H-2A Program
Newsletters - Fall 2009 Newsletter
Farmworker Justice is helping farmworker organizations and advocates reform the H-2A temporary foreign agricultural worker program through litigation, advocacy and media activities. The damage done to farmworkers by the Bush-Chao Administration during 2009 cannot be undone. We are hopeful that 2010 will be a better year.The H-2A program allows U.S. employers to bring foreign citizens in for seasonal agricultural jobs but subjects the workers to a "non-immigrant," temporary status that deprives them of bargaining power. The modest social contract under which certain labor protections are required to reduce exploitation of vulnerable guestworkers was destroyed by the Bush Administration's deregulation of the program, which took effect on January 17, 2009.
Farmworker Justice, with substantial work performed pro bono by the WilmerHale law firm, filed a lawsuit on behalf of the United Farm Workers, Farm Labor Organizing Committee, PCUN (Oregon's farmworker union) and individual farmworkers. We sought a preliminary injunction to stop the changes from taking effect but the judge declined to issue an emergency injunction. The case is still pending. The Bush changes lowered wage rates, often by $1.50 to $2.00 per hour; reduced reimbursement for workers' transportation costs; eliminated oversight of employers' applications; subverted U.S. workers' job preference; and made other harmful changes. These changes were implemented during 2009 and remain in effect.
Our coalition persuaded the new Secretary of Labor, Hilda Solis, to announce her intent to withdraw these changes, reinstate the former rules and revise the regulations more fully in subsequent months. We then helped organizations around the country submit comments to the Department of Labor supporting these plans. The restoration was to have occurred in late June 2009. However, agribusiness groups filed their own litigation and obtained a preliminary injunction from a Greensboro, NC federal judge. Farmworker Justice, Robert W. Willis and Rob Williams represent the UFW and individual farmworkers as interveners in that litigation. We appreciate help from the attorneys at the AFL-CIO and Change to Win. DOL eventually appealed the injunction but no action had occurred on the appeal by press time.
On September 4, 2009, Secretary Solis published a comprehensive proposal to revise the H-2A regulations. The public was given until October 20 to submit comments. The proposal would restore some of the former regulations, adopt some of the Bush-Chao changes, and make additional changes. While Farmworker Justice supports the general approach, we have been working with other organizations to recommend additional improvements to end some of the more serious abuses under the H-2A program. Farmworker Justice has been assisting hundreds of organizations to submit comments on the proposal.
We are hopeful that the new H-2A regulations would be finalized and take effect for the 2010 seasons. Several agribusiness representatives already have promised to file a lawsuit against Solis if her proposal is finalized. Farmworker Justice will be ready to help farmworkers defend against such attacks and to enforce their modest rights under the H-2A program.
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