WAFLA Joins Suit Over Improving Farmworker Protection Rule

Ag Organizations across the country are seeking a nationwide injunction against a new U.S. Department of Labor rule, allowing foreign farmworkers to form unions, as well as other considerable changes to the H-2A program.  A federal judge in Georgia has already blocked the DOL rule, “Improving Farmworker Protections” in 17 states, including Idaho.  In mid-September, a new lawsuit was filed to extend the preliminary injunction nationwide.

WAFLA joined the National Council of Agricultural Employers, and a host of farmers filing the suit in the U.S. District Court for Eastern Kentucky September 16th.  Enrique Gastelum, WAFLA CEO acknowledges that conceptually, at the highest level, there are some tolerable portions of the Improving Farmworker Protection rule, but he added it will create an audit nightmare.

“Lots of grenades and traps being set where a farmer can get tripped up," he noted.  "And if anybody has seen citations and violations from the Department of Labor, they're not a couple hundred bucks.  These all start at $5-$10,000, and they just go up from there.  And in an industry right now, labor intensive Ag is stressed by markets, finances, regulatory burden, etc., we just saw this as just too much for the industry to take right now.”

Gastelum said those who advocate for this DOL rule don’t appreciate the ripple effect this could have on farm country, not only in the Northwest, but nationally.

“Farms getting consolidated so that now means job loss for, yeah, these foreign workers, but I think more severely any local domestic U.S. workers that we still have that are working in labor intensive Ag.  Farms shutting down is not a good thing for not just the workers, but the local economies, and the local communities that are dependent upon these workers coming to the area and producing these products.”

Learn more about the suit filed by WAFLA, and the expected timeline, by listening to our conversation with Gastelum:

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