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Labor suits are building as farm groups push for relief

An ag leader says farm groups are taking multiple actions against the U.S. Department of Labor’s new H-2A guest worker rule to find relief from the regulations.

Michael Marsh with the National Council of Agricultural Employers tells Brownfield, “At this point, that kind of looks like that’s going to be the way to get relief from the regulations and hopefully have the Court to go ahead and make a determination that what the Department of Labor has come up with is simply unconstitutional.”

He says farmers using the program have been issued more than 3,000 new pages of regulations in the last 20 months on top of the unsustainably high cost to participate.

In August, a U.S. District Court Judge in Georgia ruled the worker protection rule illegally provides collective bargaining rights to H-2A guest workers and contradicts the National Labor Relations Act.

Marsh says the rule is now enjoined in the 17 states that were part of that case and his organization is asking for a similar injunction in the U.S. District Court of Kentucky.

“If we were to get a similar injunction against that regulation, then that would apply everywhere, not just for the 17 states that were part of that suit,” he explains.

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

Marsh says a recent ruling from a U.S. District Court in Louisiana on how H-2A wage rates are determined could also lead to a positive ruling in the Council’s suit in Florida.

“The recommendations from the magistrate to the District Court judge in that action cited Chevron deference 15 different times so we’re very optimistic,” he shares.

In June the Supreme Court’s overturned the chevron doctrine which had instructed courts to defer to a federal agency’s interpretation of unclear laws.

Marsh says an injunction could be made by early fall, but meaningful farm labor reform needs to come from Congress.

AUDIO: Michael Marsh, National Council of Agricultural Employers