Just a few hours ago, the Department of Labor announced new protections for migrant workers! The historic, worker-protective rule reflects decades of courageous advocacy by migrant workers,CDM, and allied organizations. The rule has the potential to improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of migrant agricultural workers in the U.S. H-2A visa program.
Some of the hard-fought protections in these regulations include:
- Employers can’t retaliate against workers for speaking out against abuse by firing them. Workers have stronger protections against being fired without cause.
- Workers must have access to safe transportation and seatbelts.
- Workers won the right to invite guests (including us!) to visit them in their employer-provided housing.
- Workers have stronger protections against recruitment fraud and trafficking. Employers can’t take worker’s documents to limit their mobility.
These are basic protections that all workers should have. And now, thanks to these new DOL regulations, agricultural guestworkers will have them too. After more than 18 years of advocacy by CDM and migrant workers, this is a win worth celebrating together.
CDM has supported migrant worker leaders to speak directly with the Department of Labor, sharing their experiences of retaliation, wage theft, unsafe working conditions, and abuse in the H-2 programs. Many migrant workers also submitted comments highlighting the need for worker protective rules. Their voices and experiences shine through in this rule. CDM’s advocacy team and Migration that Works also fought for this rule in the face of well-organized, low-road employer attacks, submitting brilliant comments in defense of the rule after consulting with migrant worker leaders to shape it.
Today, we celebrate these new regulations that will hopefully go a long way in ensuring that no other workers experience the abuse experienced by those who went before. We hope these protections will help keep workers healthy, safe and able to access justice. And we hope you’ll join us in celebrating this victory. Your generous support enables us to engage deeply with migrant workers, centering their experiences and voices in our advocacy and all that we do.
After hearing about this momentous victory, Eleazar Guevara, one of the migrant leaders of the Comité de Defensa del Migrante, and a former H-2A worker himself, shared this reflection: “These protections benefit all workers. They are long awaited and very necessary… I hope they improve working conditions for migrant workers. I hope they help all of us shake the fear of defending our rights”.