A second federal judge has ruled against a federal rule, put forward by President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s Department of Labor, that gives collective bargaining rights to foreign farm workers while American farm workers are excluded.
In September 2023, the Labor Department announced a federal rule that would dramatically change the H-2A visa program, which allows United States farms to import foreign workers to take American agricultural jobs.
As part of the rule, finalized in April 2024, foreign H-2A visa workers would get collective bargaining rights not afforded to American farm workers.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves granted a preliminary injunction to prevent the rule from taking effect in West Virginia, Kentucky, Ohio, and Alabama — the four states that joined a lawsuit to block its implementation.
“The Final Rule not so sneakily creates substantive collective bargaining rights for H-2A agricultural workers through the ‘prohibitions’ it places on their employers,” Reeves writes:
Framing these provisions as mere expansions of anti-retaliation policies, the DOL attempts to grant H-2A workers substantive rights without Congressional authorization. The worker voice and empowerment provisions thus illegally contravene the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA). [Emphasis added]
…
The United States Department of Labor, Julie Su, the Acting Secretary of the United States Department of Labor, along with their secretaries, directors, administrators, and employees, are ENJOINED and RESTRAINED from implementing, enacting, enforcing, or taking any action in any manner to enforce the following provisions of the Final Rule. [Emphasis added]
“This is a win for the rule of law in particular to putting a halt to an attempt from an administrative agency to legislate without the consent of Congress,” West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said. “It’s clear from the order Monday that the Department of Labor had overstepped its authority.”
Already, in August, a federal judge in Georgia had ruled against the Biden-Harris rule — finding that it created rights for foreign farm workers that were not approved by Congress.
In that case, the judge issued a preliminary injunction, blocking its implementation in Georgia, Kansas, South Carolina, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia.
As Breitbart News has chronicled for years, the H-2A visa program is often used to replace Americans and preserve the low cost of agricultural labor.
In 1997, more than 16,000 foreign H-2A visa workers were imported to take American agriculture jobs. The latest data from fiscal year 2022 shows that U.S. farms imported nearly 300,000 foreign H-2A visa workers to fill American jobs.
The case is Barton v. Department of Labor, No. 5:24-cv-00249 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.