• "It does not include the right to organize for farmworkers. It excludes many workers from "blue card" status, sets up a very long path to get residency status, and requires farmworkers to continue working in agriculture for up to 8 years to qualify. It expands the H-2A program without providing necessary oversight or adequate protections, and will serve to further divide farmworkers against one another based on their immigration status… Many of our farmworker members with guestworkers are seeing increasing numbers of guestworkers enter their regions and sectors, and with that an increase in exploitation for both H-2A workers and domestic workers. H-2A workers’ immigration status is tied to one employer and workers are isolated in rural farming locations with little access to support, making it much more challenging to speak out about exploitation." Source: Food Chain Worker’s Alliance
• "We are deeply opposed to the H2A guestworker visa program, which commodifies workers in a globalized, for-profit system that favors corporate control. The FWMA allows for a major, permanent expansion of the H-2A program, which would continue a trend that has been displacing domestic farmworkers for the last twenty years. The language in this bill limits workers’ status to employer sponsorship, facilitating an environment of exploitation, retaliation, wage theft, and blacklisting. There is no provision for the right to strike, the right to join a union, or the right to bargain collectively as a counterbalance to employers’ control over workers." Source: Community to Community Food Justice