ANLA submits official comments on proposal to overhaul the H-2A temp worker program

The American Nursery & Landscape Association (ANLA) recently submitted official comments on the Department of Labor’s (DOL) proposal to overhaul the H-2A agricultural temporary and seasonal guest worker program.  ANLA generally opposed the proposal on the grounds that it would make the already-cumbersome and unpopular H-2A program more burdensome, bureaucratic, and unresponsive.  While a number of nursery operations use the program, at the present time, H-2A only provides about three percent of the hired farm labor force in the U.S.  Meanwhile, government statistics coupled with private estimates suggest that more than half, and perhaps three quarters, of farm workers are falsely documented and lack proper work authorization.

DOL’s proposed rule is the latest episode in a regulatory soap opera.  In February, 2008, the Bush Administration DOL proposed sweeping changes to H-2A.  Those changes were made final on December 18, 2008, and took effect on January 17, 2009.  DOL was immediately sued by farm worker advocates, but the rules were implemented anyway.  The labor advocate suit is still pending.  In March, the Obama Administration’s DOL proposed to suspend the rules, but the suspension, scheduled to take effect on June 29, was temporarily blocked by a federal district court judge in North Carolina.  So instead, DOL moved to rewrite the program.