The Department of Labor wants to erase some reforms to the H-2A agricultural guest worker program that the Bush administration approved in January, leading to higher employer expenses if left unchanged.
“The department has also determined that the areas in which agricultural workers are most vulnerable — wages — has been adversely impacted to a far more significant extent than anticipated by the 2008 Final Rule,” according to the 248-page proposal, published in the Sept. 4 Federal Register. There is a 30-day comment period.
The labor department’s document said the Bush administration reforms reduced wages by $1.44 per hour, and said the department would “rectify” that adverse effect on agricultural workers.
“We need to carefully review all the substance, but our expectation is that it is somewhat a mix of the pre-Bush rules program and possibly some elements of the Bush rule program,” said Craig Regelbrugge, vice president of government relations for the American Nursery and Landscaping Association, Washington, D.C. “The pessimist in the group believes what the final proposal will contain is the worst of both.”
Regelbrugge said the proposal was evidence of the need for immigration reform.
“This proposal is, on balance, negative news for growers and producers who are using or think of using H-2A,” Regelbrugge said.
“What it absolutely does is underscore the need to get statutory reform where there is an agreed framework in statutory law so we don’t’ have the industry succumb to the whims of administrations coming and administrations going,” he said. “What we need is legislation like AgJobs, which locks what we need in statute and would give us a predictable program.”