Guide · Agriculture
Farm Labor and Agricultural Workers: A Comprehensive Guide to MSPA, H-2A, Wages, Housing, and Field Standards
29 U.S.C. § 213
- Type
- Guide
- Jurisdiction
- National
- Date
- 2025-01-09
- Topic
- Agriculture
This guide covers farm labor and seasonal agricultural workers from the statutory exclusions that define the field through contractor registration, disclosure, housing, transportation, the H-2A program, field hazards, joint employment, and enforcement. It begins with what farmworkers were carved out of — federal overtime, a small-farm minimum wage exemption, looser child labor rules, and collective bargaining protection — and explains that the agriculture definition deciding those exemptions is frequently the most valuable question in a wage case. It sets out the migrant and seasonal worker statute's four mechanisms: contractor registration, written disclosure at recruitment that working conditions must then match, housing and vehicle standards, and statutory damages that make cases viable when wage claims alone would not be. It works through H-2A certification, the wage floor, housing and transportation obligations, the three-quarters guarantee, and corresponding employment. Separate parts address field sanitation, pesticides, heat and acclimatization, piece-rate arithmetic and make-up pay, joint employment across grower and contractor, retaliation and the blacklist, enforcement mechanisms including hot goods and debarment, and adjacent categories.
The full text of this document is available to Executive subscribers and above. See plans.