The National Council of Agricultural Employers (NCAE) has joined several agricultural associations and individual farmers in a lawsuit challenging a federal farmworker protection rule. The Department of Labor (DOL) rule is titled Improving Protections for Workers in Temporary Agricultural Employment in the United States.
NCAE stated that the rule unlawfully violates the rights of America’s farm and ranch families. It alleges that the rule strips employers of the due process rights afforded by the Constitution and imposes new illogical duties on farmers that infantilize and jeopardize the safety of their farmworkers. NCAE added that the rule gives temporary foreign agricultural workers the right to unionize — a right not extended to American farmworkers.
On Aug. 29, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia issued a preliminary injunction enjoining the rule from taking effect in Georgia, Kansas, South Carolina, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Virginia, as well as for certain individuals and entities. NCAE stated that farmers and ranchers with operations in the two-thirds of states not covered by the injunction are left vulnerable to substantive provisions of the rule.
In the injunction, the court stated that the DOL “may assist Congress but may not become Congress.”
The DOL on Sept. 10 stated that it would begin processing applications from employers not covered by the injunction in accordance with the final rule on Sept. 12. It added that it would process applications for employers covered by the injunction in accordance with the regulations that were in effect prior, thereby creating a new multiple-application process.
Michael Marsh, president and chief executive officer of NCAE, said the DOL “decided to further complicate matters for farm and ranch families by creating a bifurcated application process at the whim of the acting secretary’s pen rather than through true notice-and-comment rulemaking. This is something the acting secretary and her department know they cannot do.”
“The council and our colleagues in this litigation are hopeful the U.S. District Court in the Eastern District of Kentucky will understand and agree that this rule must be dissolved once and for all,” Marsh stated.
NCAE is the national trade association focusing on agricultural labor issues from the employer’s viewpoint.
Source: NCAE
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