Farmworkers rally in Olympia amid federal court battle over wages
Familias Unidas por la Justicia, a WA migrant workers’ union, is involved in an ongoing lawsuit with the Department of Labor over a shift to hourly pay.
/ January 24, 2025
Dozens of farmworkers and allies donned red handkerchiefs and hoisted flags earlier this week as they marched to the steps of the John A. Cherberg Building at the state Capitol – making their way to chants of “Si, se puede” and “Familias Unidas.”
The line came to a halt, and at the top of the steps stood Community to Community founder Rosalinda Guillen with a message for officials.
“We are farmworkers working the land of the state, keeping the economy strong,” she said. “We are not just the growers making money off of our labor. Next time, we need the governor here. Inslee would never do it. Ferguson has to do it.”
Members of Familias Unidas por la Justicia (FUJ), a union representing farmworkers in Washington, then ushered workers into the building as part of its annual Farmworkers Tribunal on Tuesday. The union rallied workers to call on state lawmakers to honor the wage protections they are fighting for in a lawsuit with the U.S. Department of Labor.
The union filed a lawsuit against the federal agency last May to contest its prevailing wage system, which sets a standard wage for workers hired on temporary agricultural H-2A visas based on survey data it received from the Washington Employment Security Department (ESD).
This story is part of Cascade PBS’s WA Workplace Watch, an investigative project covering worker safety and labor in Washington state.
FUJ argues that the Department of Labor (DOL) decision, which sets wages at $19.25 an hour, inherently disadvantages local farmworkers by making it easier for employers to import cheaper labor through the H-2A program. Union workers said they want piece-rate wages, which compensates workers for how much they pick, rather than a standard hourly wage.
FUJ and its allied groups argue that reliance on the H-2A program marks a transition from a smaller family-farming system to an industrial agricultural model – in which corporations have more control over the agricultural workforce and can push away local farmworkers who have cultivated the land for years.
Figures from the ESD indicate the government issued 33,049 H-2A visas in 2022 – a 366% increase since 2013.
Andrea Schmitt, a lawyer with Seattle-based Columbia Legal Services, which is representing FUJ in the lawsuit, explained that hourly rates can also serve as a maximum wage – limiting workers who might earn more during the same time in a piece-rate system.
“The key issue is that piece-rates are necessary to protect the real labor market in Washington,” Schmitt said. “Workers — especially workers who have experience as farmworkers, so lots of local workers — can make easily twice as much money at the piece than they could at the hourly minimum wage for the H-2A program.”
President Donald Trump’s return to power hung over this year’s tribunal. FUJ political director Edgar Franks explained that threats of mass deportations could further displace Washington’s long-established migrant workforce.
“It does send a chill factor down the community, and that creates an uneasiness. So people might almost choose to self-deport, or work something else, or do something else other than agriculture, right?” he said in an interview with Cascade PBS. “Which again, opens the door for bringing in H2-A workers.”
Ongoing court conflict
A federal judge allowed the FUJ lawsuit to continue earlier this month after the Department of Labor attempted to dismiss it, arguing it could not go forward without ESD’s participation in the case. Asked to provide comment, a DOL spokesperson responded with a breakdown of the DOL’s recent pay rates for H-2A workers for each state.
Washington’s ESD was responsible for collecting the data that DOL uses to set the prevailing wages. However, Schmitt said FUJ’s argument was that the case could go on without their participation because accountability falls on federal agencies first – and the one thing they would require from ESD would be access to said data, which was deemed confidential.
Amid months of litigation between Columbia Legal Services and the DOL, the latter agreed to return to piece-rates set in 2022, per a ruling issued by Judge John H. Chun in the Western District of Washington.
“We thought we were good. … We have protection for local workers while the rest of the case went forward, right?” Schmitt said. “So we have a lot of claims about reasons why they’re failing to accurately find prevailing wages, right? And those have to be resolved by the court. And we’re only … sort of moving towards that.”
These other reasons that FUJ planned to address included how the DOL vets wage data and how the data is used to set prevailing wages.
In September, the Worker and Farmer Labor Association, which represents growers in Washington state, joined a handful of agricultural employers to contest the DOL’s additional regulations on the H-2A program in the district court in Kentucky.
FUJ is looking to intervene in the Kentucky lawsuit, with Schmitt arguing there is no need for concurrent cases as the “only state with public prevailing piece-rates is Washington state.”
The union is still waiting to be granted intervention.
What’s next for the union?
The annual Farmworkers Tribunal in Olympia is a people’s court, explained Guillen of Community to Community. The farmworkers offer testimony before a trio of “volunteer judges” picked from Yakima, Seattle and Bellingham.
“This is our participatory democratic space,” she added.
A total of around 60 workers pressed to the front, with youth offering to speak first. Aliya, who identified herself as a 14-year-old from Burlington, spoke of her experiences as a daughter of farmworkers. Overwhelmed by the responsibility of being the main caretaker for her seven siblings, Aliya said even her baby sister calls her “Mom” now.
“I want farmworkers like my parents and all these other people here to have less hours and higher wages so that they could spend more time with their families and to have more money left over for their families,” she told the panel.
FUJ President Jose Ramirez’s daughter Angelica also offered testimony, having worked in the blueberry, strawberry and pumpkin fields alongside her family.
“I’m currently missing school to be here – because although I know my education is important, so is the wages and health of all these farm workers in this room,” she said. “I believe that a better future for farmworkers would be better wages, safer conditions, access to health care and resources.”
Mentions of piece-rate pay and starting farming cooperatives rang through the testimonials of workers as they addressed the hearing. One woman, who identified herself as Ana, came to represent the farmworker-owned Tierra y Libertad Cooperative in Everson as a solution for workers to think outside of the industrial agricultural model.
“I work without fear, no one threatens me,” she said.
Franks of the FUJ welcomed Tuesday’s turnout, and said that as the lawsuit goes on, the union will back efforts in the Legislature to cap rent hikes and challenge efforts to repeal the Keep Washington Working Act, which prevents law enforcement from inquiring into a person’s immigrant status.
“You heard it in the H-2A program, wages are too low,” he said. “And I think that, in that, by itself, determines a lot of the other issues, right? We talked about rising rent and food prices and how wages aren’t keeping up, especially in farm work.”