The National Council of Agricultural Employers (NCAE) says in a news release that USDA has released a public inspection notice that it intends to discontinue the Farm Labor Survey (FLS). USDA uses the FLS survey to establish minimum wage rates for temporary guest workers and tracks labor availability
“For years, federal regulators forced America’s farm and ranch families to pay an escalating, imaginary wage,” says Michael Marsh, NCAE’s president and CEO. “For years, NCAE and our members fought to have the department put an end to misusing the FLS as a wage-setting mechanism for H-2A workers.”
Marsh says NCAE its members and the agricultural community nationwide are grateful to U.S Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins for this much-needed relief to America’s farmers and ranchers.
“This is an exciting announcement and opportunity for America’s rural community to bounce back from years of regulatory abuse,” Marsh says. “Discontinuing the FLS finally gives America’s farmers and ranchers a real chance to be competitive with foreign competitors. We look forward to working with Secretary Rollins and the leaders at USDA to learn what this change will mean for America’s farm and ranch families.”
This comes on the heels of the decision in federal courts to vacate the U.S. Department of Labor’s 2023 Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR) Methodology rule.
“We are hopeful that this discontinuation, in conjunction with the Louisiana decision and DOL’s subsequent announcement, will mean, finally, that the market will be allowed to determine wage rates rather than a wrong-headed bureaucratic mandate,” Marsh says. “Markets work if the government will let them.”
