Farm Employers Win Injunction Against Farmworker Organizing Rule

A district court judge has blocked enforcement of regulations granting seasonal farmworkers on H-2A visas workplace organizing protections.

The Labor Department regulations added protections for worker efforts to advocate for better conditions on the job, including a ban on coercive captive audience meetings and other provisions similar to safeguards in the National Labor Relations Act.

US District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky Judge Danny C. Reeves found in an opinion Monday that those worker empowerment provisions violated NLRA even though DOL argued that they didn’t confer collective bargaining rights on H-2A workers.

Reeves granted a preliminary injunction covering ...