Wage Rate Restraining Order Denied
With your Southeast Regional Ag News, I am Haylie Shipp. This is the Ag Information Network.
A federal judge has now denied a request to block a federal rule change related to farm worker wages. Specifically, the judge’s order denied USA Farm Labor and other plaintiffs’ motions for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction.
Alex Cracchiolo, head of marketing at USA Farm Labor, says the rule change will mean increasing costs of hundreds of thousands of dollars every year…
“If you are hiring H2A workers to do things like picking, probably you’re going to be unaffected by it. But, however, if you’re planning on having workers come over and do things like harvesting your crops and then transporting them to a local elevator, if you’re doing any sort of trucking over the road, especially if it required a CDL, a lot of the time those occupations would get flagged and assigned a significantly higher wage rate.
With the rule change, he’s seen wage rates jump by eight-to-ten dollars an hour adding that this is something small farms and ag businesses can’t afford…
“And these are people who are really struggling to stay profitable as it is just because of these prices of commodities on top of their own operating costs already. So we looked at this and were like, we have to do something for the sake of our customers because this rule is absolutely damaging.”
With the judge denying this request as well as the Labor Department’s motion to dismiss, plaintiffs can proceed with a standard timeline.
