U.S. Farmworker Protection Act

This legislation seeks to protect United States farmworkers by addressing the rapid growth of the H-2A temporary agricultural worker program, which Congress believes threatens to displace domestic workers and depress their wages and working conditions. The bill establishes an annual restriction on the number of H-2A positions that can be certified by the Secretary of Labor. Specifically, the Secretary of Labor may not certify more than 400,000 H-2A positions in a fiscal year. Crucially, positions intended to be filled by workers represented by a bargaining representative are exempt from this annual limit. A bargaining representative is defined as a labor organization that represents agricultural employees, has filed specific forms with the Department of Labor, and has a collective bargaining agreement in place.