Trump admin unlawfully undercut farmworker wages

Federal district court finds a Department of Labor rule violated federal law, adversely affecting wages and working conditions for local farm workers

SUNNYSIDE, WA (August 27, 2026) — The Trump administration unlawfully undercut U.S. farmworker wages, a federal district court ruled yesterday. 18 individual U.S. farm workers, the United Farm Workers and UFW Foundation filed a lawsuit last year challenging a Department of Labor (DOL) interim final rule that dropped wages in the H2-A guest worker program, illegally undercutting pay for U.S.-based farm workers.

“I am very happy that the court did take us into account,” said Crisanto Serrano, a Sunnyside farm worker and plaintiff in the lawsuit. “I hope this court decision will protect our wages and our jobs here in the Yakima Valley for a long time. Us workers have to stay united.”

The rule cut wages by as much as $7 an hour; DOL estimated it’s implementation would transfer more that $2.4 billion in wages from workers to employers. That rule went into effect earlier this year.

Photo: UFW

“This decision recognizes the important and essential work of the men and women who put food on our tables and that farm workers should get paid fairly,” said Teresa Romero, President of the United Farm Workers. “The government must move quickly to issue new, legal, wage rates that protect the jobs and wages of local farm workers, and employers must be held accountable for paying back any difference between the new legal wage and the illegal wage rates still in effect.”

UFW is celebrating the positive outcome of their lawsuit as broader concerns with the expanded use of the H2-A guest worker program persist. Workers and unions have been sounding the alarm that reliance on the H2-A program is leaving U.S.-based farm workers without work, a violation of the program’s design.

A new study from the UCLA Latino Policy & Politics Institute explores how the H2-A program “is increasingly being used as a primary hiring mechanism, raising concerns about the displacement of local farmworkers and the erosion of job opportunities in already vulnerable communities.”

Those findings match the experiences of workers in Washington’s fields, vineyards, and packing houses.

“Farm workers’ jobs are very difficult,” said Serrano. “Even so, there are many here in Sunnyside who look for work but can’t find any. More and more, the growers just want to hire H2-A workers, who they can keep trapped on their property, instead of us local workers, who live here and who pay taxes here and have decades of experience. We don’t matter to the growers and to this President. They are happy to hire a new worker for less pay.”

“While this decision is a heartening step, we know attacks on farm worker wages will continue,” said Romero, pledging to continue fighting exploitation of the workers who feed us.