American farmers in need of help are relying more heavily on H-2A workers than ever before. According to the US Department of Labor Statistics, the number of positions filled via the H-2A…
Tag: Labor
The Meatpacking Industry Drafted Trump’s 2020 Order to Keep Plants Open At the Expense of Worker Safety
This article is republished from The Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting. Read the original article. Lawyers for Tyson Foods, one of America’s largest meatpacking companies, drafted an early version of a 2020 executive order…
Vineyards Grapple With How to Best Keep Their Workers Safe
Shannon Donnell remembers a time, just five years ago, when she didn’t see a wildfire break out until late November—well after wine grapes in Sonoma County, California had been fully harvested. Now,…
How Would a Potential Dockworkers’ Strike Affect Agriculture?
Dockworkers on the Pacific coast of the United States, represented by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union, are gearing up for a fierce debate as their contract nears expiry, according to various…
Industry Report Shows Nearly One-Third of All American Jobs Tied to Food and Agriculture
In recognition of National Agriculture Day, the sixth annual Feeding the Economy report was released today. The survey comes from 30 different food and agriculture organizations and looks at how the sectors…
Oregon Becomes Eighth State to Pass Overtime Pay for Farmworkers
After recent years of record-high temperatures and raging wildfires, Oregon farmworkers will now be entitled to overtime pay under a bill passed by the state legislature last week. The legislation states that…
Maine Governor Denies Farmworkers the Right to Unionize
With the hardships brought on by COVID-19, along with an upwelling of progressive politics over the past decade, labor movements have made real strides in the agricultural world. We’ve seen unionizing and…
H-2A Farmworkers Will See Wage Increases This Year
During the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic in spring 2020, then-President Trump implemented a freeze on the wages of foreign farm laborers under the H-2A program. Farmworkers were performing dangerous and…
This Year in Food and Farming
For a short while, 2021 seemed like it might bring about all kinds of fresh, new developments. A new president was sworn in; vaccines had just begun rolling out; maybe things would…
Facing Labor Shortage, Tyson to Ramp Up Automation in Processing Plants
Tyson Foods, one of the big four meat processors that together control around 85 percent of the industry in the United States, employs tens of thousands of workers at its meatpacking plants….