Second Judge Stops Biden-Harris Rule Giving Union Rights to Foreign Workers While Excluding Americans

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]

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