Federal Court Rejects Agribusiness Attack on Obama Administration Rules on Agricultural Guestworkers

Friday, 09 April 2010

Secretary of Labor Solis's Policy on Migrant Farmworkers Remains in Force

Today Judge Osteen of the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of North Carolina, in Greensboro, held a hearing on the request for a preliminary injunction filed by the North Carolina Growers Association and the American Farm Bureau Federation in their lawsuit to overturn the H-2A program regulations issued by Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis.  Judge Osteen rejected the grower's request to stop the regulations and the new rules for the H-2A guestworker program remain in effect.

The Solis regulations primarily restored labor protections and processes under the H-2A agricultural guestworker program that the Bush-Chao Administration had taken away and replaced in regulations that became effective in January 2009, just before President Obama took office.

Labor Department Reverses Bush Administration Changes to H-2A Guestworker Program

Thursday, 11 February 2010

New regulations undo wage cuts, restore labor protections for agricultural guestworkers

The Labor Department announced today new regulations for the H-2A agricultural guestworker program that would largely undo changes to the program made by the outgoing Bush Administration over a year ago. The last-minute regulations changes by the previous administration slashed wage rates and worker protections that had been the standard for over 20 years. The new rules take effect on March 15.

"This is a victory for our nation's farmworkers," said Bruce Goldstein, Executive Director of Farmworker Justice, a national farmworker advocacy group based in Washington DC. "It's a reversal of radical anti-worker policies imposed by the previous administration that irresponsibly stripped away basic procedures and worker protections set in place by a Republican administration in 1987."