Worker’s Rights and Agricultural Prosperity: The Necessity of Legalizing the American Agricultural Workforce

Farmworkers pick strawberries at Lewis Taylor Farms, which is co-owned by William L. Brim and Edward Walker who have large scale cotton, peanut, vegetable and greenhouse operations in Fort Valley, GA. USDA Photo by Lance Cheung.

For decades, migrant farmworkers have been the backbone of the American agricultural system. Making up an estimated 73% of agricultural workers, migrant workers face a reality of suppressed wages, long days in worsening climate conditions, inadequate access to health care and housing, and high rates of injury and illness. These conditions in combination with the tightening of immigration restrictions during the Trump administration and the pandemic have exacerbated the chronic labor shortage that left 56% of California farmers in 2019 unable to meet employment needs. As farmers become more desperate to find labor, it becomes clear that reform to the current agricultural labor model and a more direct path to citizenship for migrant workers is essential in responding to worker’s rights violations and the impacts of climate change in the agricultural sector.

The brutal conditions implicit in laboring in the modern American agricultural sector have direct ties to the systems of oppression America has long relied on for cheap agricultural labor. From slavery to the bracero program, American agriculture has a history of importing migrant labor to perform punishing agricultural work for little-to-no compensation. While the groups comprising the majority of this labor force have changed over time, America’s agricultural labor market has continuously hired vulnerable groups to eschew workers’ rights and produce the greatest profit. 

The severity of the worker’s rights crises facing migrant workers in America has only heightened in the last few years as rising temperatures and the changing climate have made the working conditions for these laborers increasingly dangerous. This is most clearly represented in the plight of migrant workers in California, where long hours in brutal heat and subpar living conditions have been highly detrimental to workers’ health. The record-setting heat of July 2021 exemplifies a long-term trend of intensifying heat waves in Southern California. Amid these heat waves, California’s summer harvest is putting workers at an increased risk of heat-related illnesses such as heat exhaustion or stroke, and an even higher risk of kidney disease from dehydration and unsanitary water. Furthermore, with workers being paid a piece rate, there lacks an incentive for them to take breaks to cool down or hydrate, a necessity for the many workers who have to be fully covered by clothes to avoid dangerous herbicides and pesticides or other harm from the produce being picked.

In 2005, the California government responded to a string of heat-related deaths with emergency safety regulations that require farmworkers to be provided with shade for breaks and cool, clear water for drinking. However, these regulations are rarely followed to a safe extent and are enforced with little frequency. The United Farm Workers, a union representing the rights of farmworkers, has filed multiple lawsuits alleging that employers are intentionally taking advantage of the vagueness in regulations to provide as little support as possible while maximizing their profit. California is one of three states that  has heat illness-based regulations for farmworkers. The issues these farmers face from heat are further compounded by cramped and often exposed living spaces, a lack of protection, quality food, and decent sanitation plaguing a working group already struggling with health and safety issues. 

Facing these conditions, undocumented migrant workers have very few options through which to better their situations. Without information about or access to government institutions, possible routes for complaint, or information about the illegality of certain living and working conditions, these migrant workers face unmitigated injustices. Certain protections such as migrant health care centers and unions exist to provide workers with resources such as access to health care and better prevention of abuse from employers but are often limited in their availability to workers. Without access to the organized protections of citizenship, the safety of these workers will be perpetually at risk. 

In March 2021, the Farm Workforce Modernization Act (H.R. 1603) proposed a reform to the current agricultural labor system after passing in the House of Representatives for the second time with support from President Biden. Its ratification would create instrumental reforms for the H-2 visa program and provide clearer, more efficient paths to citizenship for agricultural workers. 

The current H-2 visa program represents the most open path to citizenship for migrant workers in the US. By allowing US farmers to sponsor workers for a temporary visa if there are insufficient domestic workers available to do the job, the H-2 visa system creates a narrow path to citizenship. This system is full of flaws, with a minuscule number of workers able to gain sponsorship, exclusion of year-round workers, and a lack of guarantee for basic rights. The Farm Workforce Modernization Act would modify the current H-2 program in many ways, including by adding important new worker protections and allowing farm workers to apply for a “Certified Agricultural Worker” status which would provide legal employment and an easier path to citizenship for farm workers and their families. 

Ratification of the Farm Workforce Modernization Act would be a step in the right direction of protecting the safety and security of agricultural workers. Even as further work must be done to recognize the humanity and rights of immigrants in the agricultural sector, the bill is encouraging in the cooperation and compromise it represents in reforming a broken immigration system. After its first passage, the act was not considered in the Senate. As of the second passage in March, the bill has been read and received in the Senate and is currently awaiting action after being referred to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary.

In the current system, an absence of a stable agricultural workforce creates a shortage of labor, an inability to ensure rights are protected and increased food and production costs. While farmers and states attempt to entice domestic citizens towards farm work with perks such as 401(k)s and above minimum-wage pay or search for alternative sources of labor, the benefits of providing citizenship to workers already skilled in the field abound. To combat the labor shortages and crises the agricultural sector will face as the climate worsens, the US must adopt the Farm Workforce Modernization Act and further reform to allow migrant farmworkers a simple path towards legal status. This adjustment of status would not only benefit the federal budget and the economic output of US workers but would allow migrant workers to earn a living wage in a sustainable labor model devoid of exploitation and abuse.

Claire Burke is a first-year student at Barnard College planning to major in Sociology and Human Rights. She was born and raised in Kansas, but contrary to popular belief did not actually grow up on a farm.