March 2023 - 12

LABOR
Prepare for inevitable H-2A audits
CHRIS KOGER
MANAGING EDITOR
I
n the waning days of the lame-duck session of
Congress, there was still hope in some corners
of the fruit and vegetable industry that legislators
would include immigration and ag labor reforms in the
omnibus bill.
It was the only way the U.S. House of Representatives'
Farm Workplace Modernization Act, passed in 2019 and
2021, and the Senate's Affordable and Secure Food Act,
introduced on Dec. 15, would move forward.
They did not, and H-2A reforms that would have
temporarily frozen the Adverse Effect Wage Rates,
which determine hourly wages in each state for H-2A
workers, didn't take place. On Jan. 1, hourly wages for
the program rose 15.5% in Florida, 14% in Alabama,
Georgia and South Carolina, and 13% in Minnesota,
Wisconsin and Michigan. H-2A wages in other states
rose to lesser degrees.
" We're pushing our food production to our foreign
competition, " Mike Marsh, president and CEO of the
National Council of Agricultural Employers, said during
a session on ag labor in early December at the Great
Lakes Fruit, Vegetable & Farm Market EXPO in Grand
Rapids, a couple of weeks before the reforms fizzled
as the lame duck session closed. " Today, over 60% of
all of the fresh fruit consumed in the United States is
produced somewhere else, and over 35% of the fresh
vegetables. Those numbers grow every year. "
Marsh kicked off the session's labor discussion. Fred
Leitz, a Sodus, Michigan-area tomato grower who has
had several roles at the NCAE, including chairman,
asked attendees in the room at DeVos Place to do what
he's asked of them many times: contact their legislators.
" They want to hear our stories ... Michael (Marsh)
can't do it all, USApple can't do it all, Michigan Apple
(Committee) can't do it all, " said Leitz, who said he's
participated in about 30 " fly-ins " to Washington, D.C. in
the past 20 years, all designed to promote immigration
and H-2A reform with direct meeting with legislators
and their staff.
Michael Lalich, president of Low Country Labor Co.
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LLC, said employers who use the H-2A program should
be prepared for the inevitable Department of Labor
Wage and Hour Division: Even if they've never been
audited before using H-2A employees, Lalich said it's
inevitable that an audit will happen in the program.
The Department of Labor is returning to pre-COVID
on-site inspections, although paper audits will still be
conducted by the Office of Foreign Labor Certification.
Lalich shared tips on how to prepare and plan for an
H-2A audit.
Choose someone who will be the " point person "
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12 | MARCH 2023
for the company to accompany the investigator - " On
the farm, there's a bunch of different roles, from
supervisors, farm managers, accountants, whatever it
may be, " Lalich said. " Everybody needs to know their
role when Wage and Hour arrives. " Experts from each
area, from field labor to packinghouse operation, should
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March 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of March 2023
