Idaho farms prospered as U.S. sought to pay immigrant workers less. What happened next
Thousands of immigrant workers in Idaho who are part of a work visa program will get small pay raises in 2022 after the removal of a Trump-era wage freeze.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture last month released its annual survey on farm labor, which is used to determine the rate of pay for temporary seasonal workers from outside the U.S. who fill agriculture jobs. The survey results mean Idaho workers will see an estimated wage increase of 13 cents per hour, according to the American Farm Bureau.
There were over 6,000 H-2A workers in Idaho between October 2020 to September 2021, the Idaho Department of Labor said. In 2021, those workers made $14.55 per hour, up nearly 7% from $13.62 per hour in 2020. In 2022, it is estimated they will make $14.68.
Former President Donald Trump announced a wage freeze to help farmers who saw their business disrupted during the COVID-19 pandemic shutdowns. Starting in April 2020, the Trump administration announced that it was considering reduced wages for guest farmworkers admitted with H-2A visas. Then, in November 2020, the administration formally announced a wage freeze for guest farmworkers, which was celebrated by top agricultural officials.
Farmworker Justice, on behalf of the United Farm Workers union and the UFW Foundation, challenged the freeze, and last year a California federal court ruled in their favor. It reinstated the wage increases based on the Department of Agriculture’s surveys.
For Idaho farmers and producers, the nominal increase is good, said Joel Anderson, executive director of Snake River Farmers Association, a Heyburn, Idaho, organization that helps agricultural employers hire through the H-2A program.
Anderson said farmers are happy that the wage increase wasn’t as high as they had seen in previous years.
“It is sad to think of it in this way,” he said by phone. “When the survey came out and we found out it is only going up by that much, after we have had such substantial increases in previous years, we are all breathing a sigh of relief.”
The ruling would have locked in at 2019 levels the minimum wage employers must pay foreign agricultural workers with H-2A visas, saving farmers and growers an estimated $1.6 billion in labor costs over 10 years.
Advocates said that the wage freeze was unfair since farmworkers, who were officially declared “essential workers” during the pandemic, were putting their lives on the line to work. Growers say the wage freeze was essential to keep farms operating and grocery stores stocked as the pandemic shutdowns disrupted the food supply chain.
Idaho farm profits at record high
The University of Idaho’s yearly report on the financial condition of Idaho’s agricultural sector found that the 2020 net farm income, or profit, was projected to be $3.5 billion, a 38% jump over 2019.
“Total revenues are projected to increase 10% to $9.6 billion, and total expenses are projected to be down 2%,” the report said. “If realized, 2020 net farm income will be a record high, $978 million above last year’s record of $2.6 billion.”
Elizabeth Strater, director of Strategic Campaigns for United Farm Workers, contends this success shows that farmers did not need to cut farmworker wages during the pandemic to make money.
“In a year of record income, this industry still tried to suppress wages for the skilled, vulnerable workforce building that wealth, and withholding thousands and thousands of dollars from thousands and thousands of farm workers in Idaho alone,” she said.
H-2A workers are excluded from labor protections that U.S. workers know, like overtime pay.
Department of Agriculture suggests new wage structure
In a related case, the UFW and the UFW Foundation also sued the Department of Agriculture last fall to reverse a Sept. 30 order from the USDA to halt the government’s collection of farm labor worker data that helps determine wages and eligibility for family assistance programs.
The union argued that wages for guest workers would decline sharply without the survey collection, because the Department of Labor would not have data to establish new wage rates other than state minimum wages.
The USDA farm labor worker data is used to establish the adverse wage effect rate, the rate of pay established for H-2A workers that doesn’t adversely affect the wages and working conditions of domestic workers.
“Eliminating the (farm labor survey) data and (the adverse wage effect fate) requirements would have withheld as much as $18,000 this year from farm workers already doing some of the most dangerous and grueling work imaginable,” said Strater, in an email. “Beyond H2A workers, the (adverse wage effect rate) is protecting Idahoans against artificially suppressing the wages of Idaho residents. If the (adverse wage effect rate) had been suppressed or eliminated, it would have a unnatural suppressive effect on domestic wages and spiral the deficit of skilled workers willing to be employed on Idaho farms.“
Strater also argued that the efforts to get rid of the adverse wage effect rate and to freeze wages for H-2A workers helps large corporate farms, rather than small or medium-sized farms.
