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Farmworker wages won’t freeze after a California federal judge granted preliminary injunction in a wage freeze lawsuit against the Department of Labor.
U.S. District Judge Dale Drozd granted the plaintiffs’ motion for preliminary injunction after he found that this relief is reasonable while the case continues to be litigated. Without a temporary injunction against freezing farmworker wages, the court states that certain farmworkers could suffer serious harm.
“The court is persuaded by both plaintiffs’ and the State of California’s arguments and finds that plaintiffs—and farmworkers beyond plaintiffs’ members—will suffer irreparable harm absent the granting of the requested injunctive relief,” Judge Drozd determined.
This order was handed down in a wage freeze lawsuit from United Farm Workers (UFW), a union which advocates for fair farmworker wages and benefits, along with other advocates. According to these plaintiffs, farmworkers have recently had their rights threatened by a proposed wage freeze from the U.S. Department of Labor.
In November, the Department of Labor announced a proposed wage freeze affecting farmworkers who work under H-2A visas. Before the proposed freeze, minimum farmworkers wages for these visa holders were determined based on biannual surveys by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA).
Under the Trump Administration’s proposed wage freeze, base pay increases for H-2A farmworker wages would stop starting in 2023. Instead of being determined by USDA surveys, wage changes under this order would reportedly change farmworker wages based on the Employment Cost Index which measures changes in the cost of labor based on non-agricultural sectors.
Although the Department of Labor argued that this wage freeze would not adversely affect wages and working conditions of H-2A workers, UFW quickly challenged the proposed wage order in a lawsuit. According to the farmers union, farmworker wages will be significantly decreased while $1.6 billion from these wages will be transferred to other agricultural workers.
“Farmworkers should be paid more, not less, especially as they work under the conditions that we’re seeing during this pandemic,” UFW Foundation Executive Director Diana Tellefson Torres told NPR.
Judge Drozd agreed that this wage order could cause “irreparable harm,” though the case will still need to go through the litigation process to make a final decision. However, under the preliminary injunction, farmworker wages will be safe from the proposed wage freeze during this process.
The injunctive relief was handed down on Dec. 23, only days after the wage freeze was scheduled to take effect. This short time frame of seeking relief was a source of contention for the defendants.
The Department of Labor previously argued against an injunction, claiming that the plaintiffs are responsible for the rushed timeline. However, the judge found that this argument was “unpersuasive” and noted that “the current situation is in fact one of the government’s own making—not plaintiffs.”
What are your thoughts on the proposed wage change from the Department of Labor? Let us know in the comment section below.
The farmworker plaintiffs are represented by Mark D. Selwyn of Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP.
The Farmworker Wages Lawsuit is United Farm Workers, et al. v. U.S. Department of Labor, et al., Case No. 1:20-at-00969, in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, Fresno Division.
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