COTTON
Ginners Marketplace COTTON FARMING IS THE OFFICIAL PUBLICATION OF THE GINNING INDUSTRY.
The H-2A Program: What It Is And When To Use It The H-2A temporary agricultural program is for bringing in laborers from other countries to work in agriculture when there is no other source of employees in an area. Typically, this work is limited to “on a farm” or “by a farmer.” Cotton gins are one of only a few entities that can use the H-2A program outside of that narrow use case. Your associations recently spent a lot of resources ensuring this concession stays in place going forward. The H-2A program was created in 1986 to replace some older programs that tended to lead to worker abuse by various entities. During the past 30 years, workers (legal or not) were available in most areas as seasonal or year-round employees so the program was not widely used for a long time. Immigration officials largely left everyone alone. The only people who used the program until recently were mostly fruit and vegetable farmers who needed hundreds of workers for a few weeks until they were done. Think large tomato or berry farms or tree fruit. This situation has changed dramatically as all agricultural workers have become nearly impossible to find, including gin workers — more than I ever expected. The H-2A program is a very cumbersome and expensive source of labor. It is meant to be that way to discourage its use over hiring domestic workers. You should always hire legal U.S. workers over bringing in foreign workers. That’s the law. H-2A is also a program fraught with perils and pitfalls. Many employers have found themselves on the wrong end of an investigation as well as experiencing harassment by worker advocates when using it. Yes, I mean to make sure you understand that the H2-A program is a last resort.
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Ginners’ Associations Go To Bat Recently, the Department of Labor began denying H-2A applications by employers in other industries for workers who drive produce or fruit trucks to the packing shed from the farm. Many of these employers had been using the program for years. We then had one such denial in the cotton industry. A custom hauler was told their work wasn’t agriculture. Your ginners’ associations banded together and helped fight that denial all the way to court. This effort took resources from across the Cotton Belt to mount a defense, and we got what we needed to accomplish this. The judge affirmed that cotton ginning was indeed agriculture in the definition of the H-2A program and that hauling cotton to the gin was an essential service in connection with the ginning of cotton. Here is a bit of advice. You have to plan ahead. Employers begin looking for workers in the spring for the fall. Don’t go into the program without a reputable agent/contractor to navigate the shark-infested waters and don’t go into the program half-heartedly. It is easy to get hung on the many rules and regulations. And bad actors or perceived bad actors should not be in the program. They make it look bad and the industry look bad, too. Your associations hope you never have to use the H-2A pro-
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COTTON FARMING | OCTOBER 2019
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Indeco Products, Inc. PO Box 865 140 Ridge Drive San Marcos, TX 78667 512-396-5814 COTTONFARMING.COM