The Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP) has been admitting Caribbean workers since 1966 and Mexican workers since 1974 to fill jobs on Canadian farms when Canadian workers are not available. Procedures to recruit workers and to protect them while they are employed abroad are spelled out in government-to-government MOUs and employer-worker contracts.
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USDA’s Farm Labor Survey surveys farmers twice a year to obtain estimates of employment and average hourly earnings for workers who are hired directly by farm operators. Data are collected for the week that includes the 12th of the month, and reported for 15 multistate regions and three states, California, Florida, and Hawaii. Data for January and April are collected in April, and data for July and October are collected in October.
The House approved HR 5038, the Farm Workforce Modernization Act (FWMA), by a vote of 260-165 in December 2019 to legalize currently unauthorized farm workers, streamline the H-2A program, and require farm employers to use E-Verify to check newly hired workers. Almost all Democrats supported the FWMA, while three fourths of Republicans opposed the bill.
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There are two major US farm worker unions, the UFW in California and the Farm Labor Organizing Committee in Ohio and North Carolina. The UFW reported 7,481 members in 2018 who could vote, and 1,213 retired members and 371 agency payers who could not vote on union issues. The UFW reported about 5,000 members to DOL until 2013, 10,000 in 2013, and less than 8,000 in recent years.
The OECD reported that almost five million temporary foreign workers entered 20 OECD countries in 2017, including a third who entered the US. The OECD counts foreigners who have the right to work in the host country, but not the right to settle. However, some temporary migrant workers “earn” settlement rights, as when their employers sponsor them for immigrant visas.