WG’s H-2A Effort Continues to Expand
By Tim Linden I t is no secret that the United States is currently facing a tremendous labor shortage as employers all over the country are having trouble finding workers to fill vacant slots. Welcome to production agriculture, which has been dealing with an acute labor shortage for many years. The problem has been increasing over the last few decades as the U.S. Congress has been unable, or unwilling, to pass meaningful immigration reform. And it has been exacerbated over the last 16 months with worker concerns about COVID-19 reducing the workforce and the reopening of the nation allowing workers to be very selective as “Help Wanted” signs are ubiquitous. Agriculture does have one advantage as it can utilize the U.S. Department of Labor’s H-2A program to hire temporary foreign workers on a contract basis. Though the program has always been cumbersome with a myriad of challenging regulations, more and more ag employers are utilizing the concept to augment their workforce. Western Growers Legal Department began offering its agent services to members about 15 years ago and has become quite expert in traversing the rules of the game. WG Senior Vice President & General Counsel Jason Resnick said the organization filed a couple of applications on behalf of members that first year covering a limited amount of workers. In 2020, the legal staff prepared dozens of applications covering thousands of workers. “For the first 10 years, we had a slow but steady increase in the number of members that were using us to file their H-2A applications,” Resnick said. “In the last five years, we have seen a much steeper increase. Each year, more and more companies are turning to the program.” He said Western Growers has worked with some employers for more than a decade while others have just started this year with small pilot programs. Some applications ask for scores of H-2A employees while others request just a handful or two. Western Growers now has a staff dedicated to the effort and works on behalf of members as their official agent in this fee-for-service program. Resnick said the program’s learning curve is still steep
though the core regulations have remained largely unchanged in the last decade allowing WG to become expert on its nuances and knowledgeable of its potential pitfalls. “There is a minefield of missteps that can be damaging to your application if you are not familiar with the program,” he said, noting that housing and transportation rules are typically the highest barriers to entry. He did say that the filing of applications is now done electronically, which has made it a bit easier, at least regarding the paperwork. Resnick’s experiences over the last couple of years indicate that most ag employers have either reached their tipping point or will soon be there. “I have never seen such shortages of domestic labor that we are currently witnessing,” he said. “And it’s not getting any better.” River Vista Farms in Colusa County in Northern California has been using Western Growers to secure H-2A workers for the past four seasons. The fifth-generation family farm is operated by Woody and Kathy Yerxa along with their son Mitchell, their daughter Melissa and her husband, Antonio Ortiz. They grow about 2,700 acres of mixed crops including prunes, almonds, walnuts and pecans as well as processing tomatoes, and various seed crops. “We are growers, not packers or processors. Our combined years of experience are used to raise crops of the highest quality. We feel very appreciative to have a stable and full- time workforce that is very productive,” said Kathy Yerxa. The company has used several different strategies over the year to secure workers, including word of mouth, California’s Employment Development Department, college job fairs, and farm labor contractors. Their need for workers expands in the April to October time frame as their crops mature. Each of the past four years, they have applied for nine to 14 H-2A workers to fill their labor gap. Those workers represent about 30% of their workforce during that period. “I do not think that we could have gotten these H-2A workers without the help of Western Growers,” said Woody. “Jason Resnick and Western Growers have been wonderful to work with. They are responsive to inquiries, are extremely helpful at all steps
32
JULY | AUGUST 2021
Western Grower & Shipper | www.wga.com
Made with FlippingBook - Online catalogs