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Below you'll see everything we could locate for your search of “H-2A program”
By Frank Giles There has been a lot of activity in the past couple of years surrounding the H-2A visa program for agricultural workers. The wage-rate has skyrocketed, and a new final rule, titled Improving Protection for Workers in Temporary Agricultural Employment in the United States, is causing more regulatory heartburn for growers. The rule was published in June and …
By Clint Thompson Specialty crop producers in Georgia and Florida scored a court victory on Monday. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia granted a preliminary injunction, halting the effective date of the U.S. Department of Labor’s (DOL) controversial Farmworker Protection Rule. The DOL cannot enforce the rule in the 17 states that were involved in challenging …
By Clint Thompson Unionization among farmworkers goes against the Supreme Court ruling and is a basis for the lawsuit against the Department of Labor (DOL) by the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association. It also serves as added rationale that the H-2A program needs congressional reform, says Chris Butts, executive director of the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association (GFVGA). …
By Clint Thompson Specialty crop producers would like nothing more than to hire domestic labor and scrap the expensive and cumbersome H-2A program altogether. But growers are not afforded that option. American workers are dodging work in agriculture, leaving fruit and vegetable work to a seasonal workforce that largely only exists overseas. Certain factions of the nation’s leadership are oblivious …
By Clint Thompson Domestic labor is all but a non-existent option for specialty crop producers. Industry leaders want congressional leaders to understand that reality and the added importance of the H-2A program. Michael Marsh, president and chief executive officer of the National Council of Agricultural Employers, spoke about the current labor crisis at the Georgia Agricultural Labor Relations Forum last …
By Clint Thompson The convoluted and sometimes perplexing nature of the H-2A program has Chris Butts concerned about the ramifications of one misstep by his producers. Butts, executive vice president of the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association (GFVGA), continues to voice his concerns with how the methodology is constructed to determine the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR); the expense …
By Clint Thompson The top users of the H-2A program remain the same. The order at the top, though, has changed in recent years. According to John Walt Boatright, director of government affairs with American Farm Bureau, Florida was still the top user of the program from Fiscal Year 2021 to Fiscal Year 2022 with 50,973 certified positions. California was …
By Clint Thompson With all of the expensive headaches that accompany the H-2A program, it still provides growers with a much-needed workforce they aren’t going to find anywhere else. “I think at this particular juncture, people see it as the only game in town. No other viable option has presented itself,” said Veronica Nigh, economist with American Farm Bureau Federation …
By Clint Thompson The mandate that all non-U.S individuals entering the United States show proof of a COVID-19 vaccination will impact specialty crop producers hoping to get H-2A workers into the country in time for the spring crop. That’s the fear anyway shared by American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF) Director of Congressional Relations Allison Crittendon. “I think it could cause …
Florida and Georgia remained the top two users of the H-2A program, according to the U.S. Department of Labor, as of Sept. 30, 2021. For the fiscal year (FY) 2021, the number of certified positions for Florida numbered 44,706, or 14.1% of the total certified in FY 2021. Georgia was second with 35,205 positions or 11.1%. The other top states …
