Source: Apreill Hartsfield, SOUTHERN POVERTYLAW CENTER, 10/23/12
Southern Poverty Law Center Asks 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to Uphold Labor Department’s Suspension of Harmful Wage Rule
Rule Undercut Wages of Foreign and U.S. Workers by Millions
RICHMOND, Va. – The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) asked the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals today to reverse a lower court’s decision that effectively reduced farmworker wages by tens of millions of dollars during a nine-month period in 2009 and 2010.
The lower court’s 2009 decision – that the U.S. Department of Labor had improperly suspended a wage rule enacted during the waning days of the Bush administration – allowed growers using the federal H-2A guestworker program to continue operating for nine months under the Bush-era rule.
“This rule cost farmworkers – both domestic workers and guestworkers – more than $100 million in wages and shows the dangers of stripping protections from guestworker programs,” said Naomi Tsu, the staff attorney who argued the case for the SPLC. “We’re urging the court to uphold the suspension of this devastating rule and require employers to pay back the wages they have taken out of workers’ pockets.”
The lower court’s decision affected the wages of farmworkers who worked under the H-2A program from June 29, 2009 to March 14, 2010. A subsequent wage ruled enacted by the DOL is now in effect and not an issue in this case.
The case is part of a long-running battle by growers to block any attempts to improve wages and working conditions for guestworkers.
The H-2A program was revised in 1986 as part of the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA), which established a system of protections for foreign and U.S. farmworkers. Congress implemented these protections to prevent abuses that had plagued the original program. The following year, it also implemented a process for determining fair wages that would ensure that an influx of foreign workers would not drive down the wages of U.S. workers.
In 2008, as the Bush administration was winding down, the DOL enacted a package of H-2A regulations that threatened to eviscerate decades-old worker protections and make it easier to replace U.S. workers with temporary foreign labor, allowing employers to drive down wages.
Under the Obama administration, the DOL suspended the rule in 2009, pending a review of its impact on wages. That decision was successfully challenged in federal court by a group of H-2A employers led by the North Carolina Growers’ Association (NCGA).
The 2008 regulations launched a national crusade by the agriculture industry and other H-2 employers to expand the program and adopt it as a solution to immigration reform.
“This case clearly demonstrates the importance of strong workplace protections for all workers,” Tsu said. “This is an opportunity to reclaim these protections for workers and to seek the millions of dollars in windfall profits that employers collected at workers’ expense.”
Additional attorneys on the case include Andrew H. Turner of Buescher, Goldhammer & Kelman; Gregory S. Schell of Migrant Farmworker Justice and Robert J. Willis of the Law Office of Robert J. Willis.
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