On, off and on again.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s National Agricultural Statistics Service announced it will reinstate its Agricultural Labor Survey, which had been suspended on Sept. 30.
The agency said in a news release that it will mail the questionnaires and collect data immediately for the survey previously scheduled for October 2020. The report, to be published on Feb. 11, will include data for the July and October 2020 reference dates, including annual average wage rates, hired workers and hours worked. The survey has been used in the past by the Department of Labor to set annual H-2A wages, by state, for guest agricultural workers.
The USDA is restarting the farm labor survey as a result of a lawsuit brought by the United Farm Workers, said Michael Marsh, CEO of the National Council of Agricultural Employers. The UFW won a court injunction against USDA by claiming the agency didn’t provide a reason for its decision and failed to give the public a chance to comment.
Still, Marsh said the reinstated survey will have no connection to changes in wage rates for the H-2A program. The Department of Labor on Nov. 5 published a rule, effective Dec. 21, that changes the way future H-2A wage adjustments will be made.
H-2A wage rates under that new method are frozen until 2023. The UFW also sued the Department of Labor over that wage rule, claiming that there wasn’t time to review and comment on the proposal.
However, Marsh said the Department of Labor’s new way of calculating wages, which ties increases in H-2A wages to the broader economy instead of just agriculture, was part of a larger H-2A reform package that was proposed in 2019.
“My guess is that (the UFW) is not going to be able to say that there wasn’t adequate notice and comment,” Marsh said.
