Why Washington's farmworkers are disappearing

The H-2A program pays international guest workers what is called an adverse-effect wage, which is higher than the minimum wage, Dilley noted, arguing that the higher-than-mandatory wages have boosted pay for all farmworkers. Non-H-2A workers are also benefiting from a higher hourly wage rate for not just harvest time, he said, but the entirety of the season.

Critics of the H-2A program contend the pay rates reported by employers in the program don't align with what workers actually see on their paychecks.

"The wage data provided by H-2A employers is not real," said Rosalinda Guillen, a longtime farmworker justice leader and executive director of C2C. Guillen is a member of the state Agricultural and Seasonal Workforce Services Advisory Committee.

Surveys on prevailing wages that underpin H-2A pay rates are carried out with employers and some employees. "But you're only getting a response from the employers, who say whatever they want," she said, adding that since the wages of H-2A workers and domestic workers are linked, wages for both end up suppressed.

Guillen contends the shortage of domestic labor is a myth created by employers so they can hire H-2A labor. Migrant workers coming into Washington are now finding the farms they worked on in previous seasons hiring H-2A workers instead.

"These workers are poor and cannot afford to spend their precious dollars traveling all the way up here to find no work," Guillen said.

She emphasized the need for accountability from the U.S. Department of Labor to ensure that domestic workers are not being displaced by the H-2A worker program "before it gets so bad that all the agricultural work in Washington state is done by H-2A workers displacing thousands of families."

It is not the H-2A workers' fault, she said. It is the growers and employers that contract them. "They just don't want workers to be independent."

Domestic workers are able to form unions, protect their rights and raise their wages, Guillen said. "Guest workers are at the mercy of their employers who hold their visas and control every aspect of their lives in the U.S."

On March 7, the Washington state Legislature passed a measure to collect more data on the employment of H-2A guest workers and their living arrangements, and to carry out annual wage surveys of farmworkers employed for the harvests.

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