NCGA Denounces Administration proposed suspension of H2--A rules

Passed along this morning by the North Carolina Growers Association and Sharon Hughes:


NCGA Denounces Secretary of Labor Solis’ Arbitrary Proposed Suspension of H2-A Rules
H-2A Employers Seeking to Hire Legally Documented Farm Workers Are Thrown into Disarray as Growing Season Begins
Vass, NC March 17, 2009: The North Carolina Growers Association members have long depended on the H-2A Temporary Foreign Agricultural Worker program to provide a legal workforce to plant and harvest the state’s crops. Today, the Secretary of Labor published a proposed rule to suspend the regulations implementing the program that just went into effect on January 17th. NCGA President Stan Eury condemned this action stating, “The H-2A user community was operating under the new regulations that met the needs of agriculture while improving working conditions for farmworkers. Now, through an arbitrary decision by the new Secretary of Labor, our growing season is in jeopardy. This proposed suspension is politically based. It is disingenuous of the new Administration to proclaim that they are revisiting the new regulations on behalf of growers.”

Now with over 80 percent of the 1.6 million agricultural workers presenting fraudulent documents, it is critical to have a functioning H-2A program. The old regulations prevented many in farming from utilizing the program because of its high costs and bureaucratic hurdles. Only around 50,000 farmworkers per year came into the U.S. under the old H-2A program. Growers labored under the old rules for over 20 years. On December 18, 2008, the Department of Labor promulgated the new regulations after over a year of extensive notice and comment rulemaking involving all interested parties. These were not “Midnight” regulations. With the new changes, more employers across the country would be able to secure a legal workforce, as we have had in North Carolina for decades.

The formidable farmworker advocate and United Farmworkers (UFW) lobby opposes these changes. As noted in the proposed Department of Labor rule, they failed to have the courts issue a temporary restraining order against the new regulations. These special interests now have the ear of Secretary Solis and she is doing what she can to block implementation. They are distorting the provisions of the new rules, claiming that they do not ensure the recruitment of U.S. workers and lower the standards for wages and other working conditions. These allegations are simply not the case. The recruitment provisions of the final regulations go far beyond what these same advocates supported in the ill-fated AgJOBS legislation of the past decade. And, with potentially more farming operations in the program, wages and benefits – housing, transportation, workers compensation insurance, etc. – will actually increase for those U.S. farmworkers with legal documents referred against H-2A job orders.

Farmers for the last four months have made all of their purchasing decisions, hiring decisions, and contract decisions based on rules of the game provided by the Federal government. “At this midnight hour after being sworn in on Friday, Secretary Solis wants to change the rules of the game and needlessly and punitively punish farmers - people putting food on the table for Americans,” stated Eury. “Secretary Solis wants to flip-flop on the American farmer by changing the current Final rule back to the old burdensome and costly rule while she rewrites her own version of the H-2A program with only a ten-day comment period.” The American farmer, American consumer, and American workers with legal documentation deserve better.
NCGA is the largest H-2A employer association in the country. All of their workers are unionized by the Farm Labor Organizing Committee.