Major Labor Lawsuit

A lawsuit has been filed against the Department of Labor, the Office of Foreign Labor Certification, Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Citizenship Services and the California Service Center for the United States Center and Immigration Service Center. Dan Fazio with wafla has the details.

FAZIO: Late last year, Congress passed an update to a guest worker program that's run out of the same office that runs the agriculture guest worker program, it's called the H-2B program. Congress made it easier for people to use the H-2B program after the Administration had made it very hard to use the program. Well, this created a lot more work for the Federal Department of Labor and the Department responded by slowing down all the applications. Fortunately for employers, the law requires that the Department of Labor process the applications and get them back to employers 30 days before they need to have the workers here.

This normally gives employers time to get visas and interviews scheduled with the State Department and Consulates.

FAZIO: The Department of Labor has decided to disregard the law that requires them to to that. So it's a nationwide problem for all agricultural employers that if they need people up here, say on April 1st, they're probably going to be a couple weeks late because the Department of Labor or some other agency has slowed it down.

The Department of Labor says it's technical issues, that they are overwhelmed or that the information is either incorrect or incomplete. We'll keep an eye on this issue.

That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.