A bipartisan team of 120 U. S. House people, led by Michigan Republican Bill Huizenga, is pushing for a ice on minimum wages paid to seasonal farm laborers.
The drive comes as farmers global have said large current increases to the legally set income are endangering their businesses.
“If we do everything, many of our components will be forced to screen their firms, despite good-faith efforts to ensure our national food safety and serve families across our country, ” the team wrote in a text to leaders of the House Appropriations Committee that was obtained by The Detroit News.
A bipartisan song, especially from people representing agricultural regions, has emerged on the topic. Congress has sought a more permanent alternative as the fast-growing H-2A visa programme for immigrant laborers has seen even faster pay rise in the last two decades. But after negotiations on a broader reform bill fell apart in the Senate in late 2022, the new email immediately seeks a momentary repair.
The letter focuses on the “adverse effect wage rate, ” which is set by the U. S. Department of Labor and based on data collected through national polls on farm work and earn. The AEWR is a minimum income level for seasonal workers meant to stop fields from undercutting American personnel by offering lower give to newcomers.
“The regional average AEWR is around$ 17. 55, which is upward of a indicate 5 percent increase over 2023. While the AEWR varies by region, nearly half of all states have an AEWR between$ 17 and$ 19 per hour in 2024 ,” the letter said, citing data from the American Farm Bureau Federation.
“Meanwhile, producers in Canada pay closer to$ 11 per hour for fieldworkers, or even approximately$ 1. 50 per minute in Mexico. This unequal playing field significantly disadvantages our domestic manufacturers, ” it adds.
The letter calls income become frozen at January 2023 levels through fiscal year 2025. It is signed by 120 people, including 10 Democrats and seven Michigan politicians in all.
On the Democratic side, that roster includes Reps. Huizenga, Gen. Jack Bergman, Lisa McClain and Tim Walberg. Political Reps. Dan Kildee, Hillary Scholten and Elissa Slotkin even signed.
Republican Rep. John Moolenaar of Michigan, a member of the House Appropriations commission the email was sent to, did no sign. But he has shown clear assistance for the ice, introducing a nonpartisan bill on it in January.
It is questionable if there is bipartisan help for the ice work in the U. S. Senate. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat , co-sponsored a broader transformation bill in March that may temporarily freeze and then cover the AEWR. “If Congress does not fix the flaws in our broken company work system, ” she said in a speech, “we will continue to neglect our farms and laborers. ”
Several farm lobbying groups nationally support the new House letter, including the Michigan Farm Bureau and groups for specific Michigan crops like asparagus, blueberries, potatoes and apples.
“The Michigan Apple industry is appreciative of the bipartisan effort to freeze H-2A wages for farmworkers, as it shows an understanding of the unsustainable increases in labor costs and overall production costs in agriculture, ” said Diane Smith of the Michigan Apple Association.
“Most apple growers are losing money at this point — more than$ 1,800 per acre, as production costs continue to rise, ” she added.
The American Farm Bureau Federation, one of the nation’s biggest agricultural lobbying groups, supported the freeze. The group was previously instrumental in stalling negotiations on broader farm labor reform, according to the immigration policy research group Ideaspace.
The H-2A visa program has soared in popularity over the last 15 years as older farm laborers have aged out of the workforce and Americans have sought more stable, high-earning careers.
There were 489 H-2A workers in Michigan in 2008. That number skyrocketed to more than 15,000 in 2023. Rapid growth finally came to a halt last year, though, as the number of workers dipped for the first time in more than a decade.
Gonzalo Peralta, a staff attorney for the Michigan Immigration Rights Center, said that farm workers— who already face difficult conditions — should not be penalized for harsher economic realities facing agriculture in the United States.
“You have unsafe conditions, you have degraded housing, you have issues of wage theft, employers who are miscounting hours or individual farms or organizations that pay per weight, ” he added, during a Monday appearance on WDET’s Created Equal.
But farmers have said a wage freeze is critical to preserving seasonal jobs at all. And even some workers, faced with the choice between stagnating pay and losing work altogether, have told The News they would prefer a freeze from Congress.
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