By The Opinion
Nov 27, 2024, 00:32 AM EST
Kentucky federal judge Danny Reeves blocked the Biden administration’s expanded protections for agricultural workers coming to work in the United States on H-2A visas.
The injunction issued by the district judge applies in Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia and Alabama. The plaintiffs in the case — Kentucky farmers and Republican attorneys general from all four states — argued that U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) rules would allow foreign agricultural workers to unionize.
Reeves considered that such action by the DOL requires the approval of Congress, and ruled in favor of the plaintiffs in these four states.
The DOL sought with the rules to provide these workers with additional legal protections against employer retaliation, unsafe working conditions, and illegal recruiting practices.
The judge, however, refused to block federal rules nationwide, thus limiting their impact to just the four states and the plaintiffs.
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman considered in a statement that the rule was “illegal and unnecessary” and would have “caused serious and irreversible harm to farmers who are just trying to survive and put food on Kentucky tables.”
He criticized that the new regulation “would have subjected Kentucky farmers to a new set of guidelines, including requirements that farmers allow temporary foreign migrant workers to participate in collective bargaining.”
“We should be working to help Kentucky farmers, not put them out of business,” he stressed.
He recalled that since its creation in 1986, The H-2A Visa Program has allowed farmers to hire foreign workers temporarily when they cannot find available Americans to fill jobs.
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