Published 5:00 pm Friday, April 17, 2020
The federal government apparently is discussing lowering the minimum wage for H-2A-visa agricultural foreign guestworkers because of the COVID-19 crisis, says Michael Marsh, president and CEO of the National Council of Agricultural Employers.
“Apparently there is some discussion between USDA and the U.S. Department of Labor, but I would be surprised that absent any rule making that it would take place because they would probably be sued either by labor advocates or folks on the right,” Marsh said.
The possibility of a reduction in the AEWR — the acronym for the Adverse Effect Wage Rate — for H-2A guestworkers was reported April 16 by Tucker Carlson on Fox News. Carlson opined against it, saying agricultural jobs should go to newly unemployed Americans.
The difficulty with that, Marsh said, is most Americans don’t want to do agricultural work because it’s physically demanding and outdoors.
Marsh said a California tomato grower this week saw an uptick in Americans looking for work. But out of the 26 applicants, 24 didn’t pass a drug test and of the two that were offered work, one didn’t show up and the other quit after half a day.
Marsh said he didn’t know if other agricultural groups are seeking a reduction in the AEWR.
Paul Schlegel, vice president of public affairs at the American Farm Bureau Federation, said it’s important to address the AEWR at a time when labor-intensive produce farms have lost much of their markets due to COVID-19.
“The closing of restaurants, hotels and tourism is forcing farmers to plow under their fields to cut their losses,” Schlegel said. “Asking farmers to pay artificially high wages at a time when their own income has largely evaporated due to the COVID-19 pandemic is not right.”
AFBF has long supported efforts to remedy the AEWR which is calculated on “flawed survey data,” causing dramatic annual increases, he said.
NCAE has previously sued and petitioned DOL to halt dramatic AEWR increases in 2019. DOL sets the AEWR annually based on prevailing wages. It is intended to keep wages of foreign workers high enough that they don’t adversely effect wages and employment of domestic workers.
DOL has never met the criteria of determining a need and just defaults to annual AEWR increases, which results in a never-ending upward spiral of foreign and domestic agricultural wages, causing some growers to go out of business, Marsh said.
The AEWR went up 5.32% on Jan. 2 in Oregon and Washington, from $15.03 to $15.83 per hour, the highest in the nation.
In comparison, the Oregon state minimum wage is $11.25 an hour and $12.50 in the Portland metro area. Washington’s is $13.50.
The national average AEWR is $13.99 per hour, up 5.58%. It increased 6.3% in January of 2019 and increased 22.8% in Nevada, Utah and Colorado at that time.
Such increases have been double or triple the annual average increases of agricultural and non-agricultural domestic workers, are costing farms hundreds of millions of dollars and are forcing some out of business, Marsh said.
It’s a huge issue for Washington tree fruit growers heavily dependent on H-2A workers.
