February 2019 - 12

H-2A use soars amid escalating adverse wage rate
By Gary Pullano
Managing Editor
The U.S. Department of Labor (DOL)
certified nearly a quarter of a million H-2A
positions in 2018. This is 108 percent more
than the number of positions certified in
fiscal year 2014, just five years ago, and
more than double the number of positions
in a short time span - with no sign of a
slowdown anytime soon.
In July 2018, after the third quarter
H-2A program data was released
by DOL's Office of Foreign Labor
Certification, Veronica Nigh, an
economist with the American Farm
Bureau Federation, predicted " an
extremely large number of positions
would be certified in the fourth quarter,
pushing DOL certifications over the
240,000 mark in fiscal year 2018. "
With DOL certifying more than 49,000
positions in July, August and September -
an increase of over 23 percent from fourth
quarter 2017 - that projection was proven
correct. A strong fourth quarter brought
the total number of certified positions in
FY 2018 to 242,762 - an increase of more
than 21 percent over FY 2017.
Nigh said the end of the fiscal year
presented a good opportunity to compare
growth in H-2A use among different
states and crops. In FY 2018, Georgia had
the largest number of certified positions,
surpassing Florida, which led the nation
in certified H-2A positions in 2015, 2016
and 2017. Georgia was able to capture the
title for the first time with an incredible
38 percent increase in certified positions
between 2017 and 2018. All of the top five
H-2A utilizing states experienced position
growth between 2017 and 2018. Even
more incredible, Nigh said, is the increase
over the last five years.
Between 2014 and 2018, Georgia, Florida,
Washington, North Carolina and California
experienced growth rates of 212 percent,
125 percent, 174 percent, 50 percent
and 213 percent, respectively. Louisiana,
Congress created the H-2A non-immigrant agricultural visa program in 1986, under which
U.S. farms can legally employ foreign workers on a temporary basis. Photo: Gary Pullano
Kentucky, New York and Arizona, all
among the top 10 states over the last five
years, also experienced growth in FY 2018,
increasing by 14 percent, 3 percent, 11
percent and 24 percent, respectively. The state
of Michigan completes the top-10 list with
8,359 positions, a growth of 24 percent from
2017. Michigan's position as the seventhlargest
user of the H-2A program is especially
impressive given that it only just made the
top 10 list for the first time in 2017.
Congress created the H-2A nonimmigrant
agricultural visa program in
1986, under which U.S. farms can legally
employ foreign workers on a temporary
basis where they can prove to the
Department of Labor that they are unable
to find and recruit sufficient numbers of
U.S. workers and that the employment of
foreign workers will not " adversely affect "
U.S. workers similarly employed.
According to National Council of
Agricultural Employers' (NCAE) President
and CEO Michael Marsh, DOL does not
currently measure actual " adverse effect "
on U.S. workers but uses average wage data
from USDA to set a minimum wage for
foreign agricultural workers. DOL has no
other mechanism right now to alter the
methodology. The calculations result in a
wage level significantly higher for the 2019
growing season, a far greater increase than
the national average and at a time when
prices are level or decreasing for most crops.
" Without immediate action, growers
will face increases of up to 23 percent in
labor costs within the next few weeks as a
result of this methodology, " Marsh wrote.
In a Jan. 7 filing, NCAE asked the
federal court of the District of Columbia
to enjoin DOL from implementing the
new AEWR for 2019. The filing sought
" immediate relief from the DOL's plan to
impose arbitrary and unsubstantiated cost
increases on American farms. "
In November, at NCAE's fifth annual
Ag Labor Forum in Las Vegas, discussion
regarding the H-2A program was front
and center.
NCAE's board announced it was asking
for short-term relief from imposition
of new wage rates for 2019 under the
" adverse effect wage rate " (AEWR) for
H-2A employment, sending a letter sent
to DOL Secretary Alexander Acosta and
U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary
Sonny Perdue.
That communication was followed a
day later when NCAE delivered a letter to
House Speaker Paul Ryan, Minority Leader
Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority
Leader Chuck Schumer requesting that
they support an effort for a short-term
freeze on any increase in the AEWR.
Writing to convey NCAE members'
" serious concerns " with the findings of
the NASS Farm Labor Survey published
on Nov. 15, 2018 and, more specifically,
the prospect that those figures will be
used to set the AEWR in 2019, Marsh
praised the efforts of the departments to
improve the survey process.
However, he asked for more extensive
changes to the wage-setting process
that would employ state- or local-based
prevailing wages, an approach that
retains a market-based outlook, prior to
making any changes to rates for 2019. The
letter to Congress was signed by several
agricultural organizations.
NCAE called for leadership to
support an effort by U.S. Sen. Thom
Tillis, R-North Carolina, in advancing
a proposal to implement a short-term
hold for wage rates for the 2019 growing
season providing a window for the
departments of labor and agriculture
to " develop an improved system for
determining an accurate and marketbased
assessment of adverse effect wages
and the most effective mechanism to
address it. "
The NCAE action came in response
to a USDA wage survey used to establish
an AEWR in the H-2A temporary
agricultural guest worker program
that " inexplicably " indicated FY 2018
agricultural wages had dramatically
spiked an average of more than 6 percent
nationwide with some states seeing an
increase of almost 23 percent.
" A temporary freeze on agricultural
wages is an imperative if U.S. farms
and ranches are to survive, " Marsh said.
" Unfair retaliatory tariffs have clobbered
American agriculture and placed many
family farms and ranches in jeopardy.
Mandating ag wage increases of as much
as 23 percent on farmers in a year when
average U.S. wage growth has been under
3 percent is unsustainable. "
Editor's Note: Vegetable Growers News
will provide updates on H-2A requirements
and its consequence in future editions
and on the publication's website (www.
vegetablegrowersnews.com). VGN
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February 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of February 2019
