United Farm Workers union sues to block Trump from lowering farm pay [View all]
Source: Washington Post
A new Labor Department rule that makes it cheaper for farmers to hire foreign guest workers illegally drives down wages for U.S. citizen farmworkers, the union said.
The United Farm Workers — along with multiple U.S. citizen farmworkers — sued the Trump administration on Friday over a new rule that substantially lowers pay for seasonal guest workers in agriculture.
The union said the Labor Department rule, which lowers pay for the H-2A agricultural visa program by about $5 to $7 an hour, “dramatically undercuts” wages for U.S. farmworkers in violation of federal immigration law.
“Farmworkers are struggling to support their families. Many of them are U.S. citizens and legal residents,” Teresa Romero, president of the United Farm Workers union, said in a phone interview. “If there is really a shortage, wages need to go up, not down. That’s what a normal labor market would do.”
The Trump administration implemented the rule on Oct. 2, saying it would reduce farmers’ labor costs by $24 billion over the next 10 years — offering the agriculture industry cheaper foreign labor as it reels from the impact of Trump’s trade wars and has raised alarms about immigration raids that have targeted some farms.
The United Farm Workers, which filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, is seeking to reverse the pay cuts, which it alleges violate laws that prevent the guest-worker program from driving down pay for U.S. farmworkers.
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