New H-2A Adverse Effect Wage Rates Up in Air as Court Orders DOL to Try Again: What Agricultural Employers Need to Know

A federal court in California just ordered the US Department of Labor (DOL) to quickly come up with a new methodology for calculating the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR) for H-2A job orders, just weeks after the agency released long-awaited new H-2A farmworker rates. Those rates had been calculated under a framework established in an interim final rule, which the DOL issued in 2025 and the United Farm Workers challenged. The district court issued an order on August 26 largely siding with the UFW... By: Fisher Phillips