Productivity boost

Photo courtesy of Legacy Labor

Greenhouse Management: What are the common misconceptions people have about H-2A labor?

Justin Bartlett: Are they even aware of what H-2A really means? A lot of people start doing research and see how many rules and regulations they need to follow that they get overwhelmed. There are agents out there that can file paperwork for you, get workers approved, all of that — even recruit for you and get them to your farm. But once they show up on your farm, they are your employees. And all of the compliance falls on you as a grower. That’s where we come in and show that there’s a better way to do it. If you don’t know anything, you can come to us and we can guide you through it. We basically handle everything.

GM: What is the benefit for a company to have someone do this for them vs. doing some of it themselves?

JB: The risk and exposure as a company with the Department of Labor, for fines — that’s the biggest thing. You can’t put a number on that. DOL could show up and give you a six-figure fine pretty quickly on certain things. There’s still some exposure [if you have someone else handle it], but it’s very minimal. The day-to-day worker management for H-2A — hiring, firing, disciplinary, payroll — all of that falls on us or another company that provides this service if you go that route. It’s a really big job for an HR person to not just manage the workers, but keep track of all of the rules and changes.

GM: What changes to H-2A should growers be most aware of and seek guidance on?

JB: They have a rule change that will go into effect in July that’s big. For every job order that’s filed after March 30, the rule change applies. The biggest change is wages. Typically, [wages] have been off of the farm labor survey and that gets updated every calendar year and based on the state. They are now allowing a different wage, the OEWS, which is the Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics survey. That usually gets updated every summer. They are going to start looking at different job duties that used to fall under general duties. One in particular is a forklift driver. If they put a different code on the job order, you have to look at what that job code pays based on both of the surveys. And if you have three different codes, and one is a $26 wage and only one out of 100 workers is doing that job, you now have to pay all 100 workers on your job order that higher wage. It’s a little confusing, but it’s manageable with the right help.

GM: What’s an example of a grower finding success with H-2A?

JB: Hoffman Nursery is one. They started with a lower number [of workers] in year one and increased that number in year two with us. They told us recently that they’ve had the most production they’ve ever done. I think that they tested this out the first year, it went really well and now they have increased workers and are seeing record productivity. That speaks for itself.