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District Courts side with cases against DOL’s farmworker rule

Three U.S. District Courts have now ruled in favor of farm groups who argue a Department of Labor farmworker rule illegally provides collective bargaining rights to H-2A guest workers

This week the U.S. District Court of Mississippi issued a nationwide stay of labor enforcement rules that would allow foreign seasonal workers to unionize, saying the Department overstepped its authority.

Michael Marsh with the National Council of Agricultural Employers tells Brownfield the U.S. District Court of Kentucky’s decision this week has even broader impacts.

“I think that this decision by this District Court judge is going to make it very challenging for the Department of Labor to resurrect this regulation,” he says.

The Kentucky judge also opposed the rule’s provisions on mandatory piece-rate pay, seatbelt requirements, personal information, and access to employer property calling the Department’s Final Rule a, “blatant arrogation of authority.”

Attorney generals in Alabama, Kentucky, Ohio, and West Virginia along with several farmers and others were part of the suit.

Kentucky’s Attorney General calls the decision a big win for farmers over a rule that could have put growers out of business.

Marsh says pending litigation in the U.S. District Court of Florida could stop the DOL from being able to use the Farm Labor Survey to establish H-2A wage rates or disaggregate wages for workers.

He says no sums for the Department of Labor and a potential wage freeze are included in some lame duck appropriation packages, but Congress may pass another continuing resolution until at least January.

Plaintiffs in the Mississippi case include the International Fresh Produce Association, American Farm Bureau Federation, Mississippi Farm Bureau Federation, Stone County Farm Bureau, Chamber of Commerce of the United States of America, AmericanHort, Florida Fruit & Vegetable Association, North American Blueberry Council, Texas International Produce Association, State of Mississippi, and U.S. Apple Association.

USApple President & CEO Jim Bair says the stay of the regulations stops the Department from enforcing the rule in the 33 states not covered by the U.S. District Court of Georgia’s partial injunction.

The International Fresh Produce Association says the decision is a major step toward safeguarding the economic stability of the agricultural community and upholding the integrity of the legal framework governing labor protections.