As mass deportation efforts affected one labor force for farms, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer promised to cut red tape so they could access another: workers on temporary visas. It hasn’t gone according to plan.
Chick-fil-A buys its chicken from a company fined by the Department of Labor for employing 14-year-olds to eviscerate poultry at an Alabama packing plant
Though they make up only 3% of all H-2A workers, white South Africans are the program’s fastest-growing group. Lawsuits in Mississippi claim they’re hired over Black US workers and paid more. The Department of Labor has confirmed allegations in dozens of cases.
Whistleblower allegations fuel new pressure on labor officials, but the agency tasked with investigating illegal child labor is operating with one of its smallest teams in decades.
Labor officials and farmworker advocates praise the new rules, which aim to hold farmworker employers who violate workers’ rights accountable. But the acting secretary of labor says the agency needs more resources to get more ‘boots on the ground.’
Farms are allowed to hire foreign workers through the H-2A visa program to help fill labor gaps. But, as several recent lawsuits and federal investigations show, some farms favored H-2A farmworkers over U.S.-based farmworkers willing to do the job.
Consciente de que los trabajadores agrícolas se exponían a viviendas inseguras y a robos salariales, el Gobierno creó hace 50 años un programa para corregir esas desigualdades pero documentos internos evidencian que su funcionamiento es deficiente.
Recognizing farmworkers endure unsafe housing and wage theft, the government created a program 50 years ago to address the inequities. Internal documents show a failing system.
For the second time in recent months, the U.S. Department of Labor has extracted penalties from a California farm business blamed for the deadly crash of a vehicle transporting migrant field workers to their jobs.
