Month: March 2024

National Council of Agricultural Employers’ Statement on Allegations of Misuse of Farm and Food Worker Relief Grant Funds

| Press Release, Uncategorized

March 20, 2024

For Immediate Release

Contact:  Michael Marsh, President and CEO

                (202) 629-9320

(Arlington, VA) It is with great frustration and dismay that the National Council of Agricultural Employers (NCAE) learns once again about allegations of the United Farm Workers (UFW) coercion of vulnerable workers and misuse of the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) Farm and Food Worker Relief (FFWR) Grant Program. This time the allegations arise from California.

The FFWR program, which began in March 2023, provided one tribal entity and 14 non-profit organizations—including the UFW Foundation—roughly $670 million to issue relief payments of $600 to farmworkers to help defray expenses they incurred preparing for, preventing exposure to, and responding to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Last May, NCAE wrote to the USDA to warn Secretary Vilsack that agents of the UFW Foundation were reportedly informing farmworkers in New York that they must first sign a UFW union authorization card to obtain their FFWR $600 payment. By coercing workers into signing union cards to receive those funds, these workers now must pay the union 3% of their wages in dues.

“At the time, NCAE shared our concerns with USDA that UFW Foundation agents were targeting New York farmworkers specifically because of a new card check law that allows a union to become the authorized bargaining representative with 51% of the workforce signing a union authorization card. The New York legislature had abandoned the farmworker protections inherent in a secret ballot union election, exposing New York farmworkers to UFW shenanigans,” shared Michael Marsh, President and CEO of NCAE. “We stressed that if UFW Foundation or their agents are misleading farmworkers by claiming it is a requirement to sign a union authorization card before UFW Foundation does what it is required to as a grantee under the FFWR program, that is clearly a misuse of Federal funds and should be referred to the Office of the Inspector General to investigate.”

The USDA replied that they would conduct additional training to prevent this type of abuse.

Frustratingly, any additional training that may have occurred has not changed the UFW’s deceitful practices. The allegations we now hear from farmworkers in California are nearly identical to those we shared with USDA 10 months ago.

Once again, UFW organizers are reportedly targeting farmworkers in California—a state with a new card check law.

Once again, farmworkers have expressed, now with 148 written declarations, that they were tricked, lied to, and coerced by UFW organizers into signing a union card to receive the $600 relief payment for which they were eligible.

Once again, NCAE is asking Secretary Vilsack and the USDA’s Office of Inspector General to investigate these repeated, extremely public allegations of misuse of federal grant funds.

“The purpose of the FFWR grant was to help farmworkers with pandemic-related health and safety costs, not to pad the pockets of UFW. USDA entrusted UFW Foundation with almost $98 million in funding to issue FFWR payments to farmworkers. Up to 10% of that award can be retained by the organization for administrative costs,” said Marsh. “It is Secretary Vilsack’s duty to ensure those remaining funds reach workers regardless of their union affiliation and without being tricked into joining the UFW.”

NCAE is the national trade association focusing on agricultural labor issues from the employer’s viewpoint.

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March 15, 2024

Michael Marsh, NCAE President & CEO

I do a good deal of travel for work.  It’s very important for me to get out of Washington, D.C. and visit with farm and ranch families – real people.  These families are truly the very best of America and that’s why I so enjoy working on their behalf in the nation’s capital.  

I almost always fly out of Reagan National Airport, and I like to leave early in the morning, both to avoid delays in travel but also to ensure that I can timely get to my destination.  

After picking me up, the taxi will drive south along the Potomac River.  In the early morning with little wind, I get to see some of the architectural icons across the river.  The Kennedy Center, the Lincoln Memorial, the Washington Monument, and the Jefferson Memorial are always lit up and each has a distinct reflection that shimmers on the river’s surface as we head south.  It almost seems peaceful, belying the chaos a Congress and Administration can bring to agricultural employers. 

And battling that chaos keeps me busy.

The Congress has been bogged down for months trying to pass the Appropriations bills necessary to fund the government.  These bills were supposed to be passed prior to the end of the 2023 fiscal year on September 30th.  However, with all the recesses the Congress takes, to say nothing of removing the Speaker of the House and then failing to quickly elect a replacement, shenanigans blocked legislative progress and Continuing Resolutions (CR) have been required to keep the government open.  One CR, after another, after another.

A different way to look at this Congressional ineptitude is to look at what they have accomplished, or haven’t, so far in this Congress.  And of course, the Congress’ inability to perform has allowed the Administration to have their way on many issues to the detriment of agricultural employers.

In the first year of this session, the Congress passed just 27 new laws that were signed by the President.  As someone who recognizes the importance of limited government for enterprise sustainability, in many ways I appreciate that few new laws are necessary.  However, in the void that is created by Congressional inaction, an Administration can wreak havoc with their regulatory regime.  And we have seen that occurring in this Administration, just like we witnessed in the last.

This lack of Congressional effort allowed the Executive branch to issue more than 3,000 new regulations while the Legislative branch was in such turmoil.  Did Americans really need all those additional regulations in 2023?

And, unfortunately, this failure to perform in the Congress continues into its second year and allows the Administration to race ahead with even more regulation.  Many of those are now being rushed to procedurally avoid Congressional review that might slow the onslaught that is coming.  And several of these are real doozies!  

One of these zingers has prompted NCAE to schedule a meeting with the White House to share our concerns.  This meeting with the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs is referred to as an Executive Order 12866 meeting and allows another opportunity for us to express concerns regarding extreme regulatory overreach.  

All indications we have received are that the Administration is intent on moving ahead with one of its most pernicious anti-farm and ranch family regulations I have ever seen.  Despite serious Constitutional frailties with the proposal.  

This rule crafted under the guise of “worker protections” by activists would, in contravention of U.S. Supreme Court precedent, allow union organizers access to farm and ranch property to threaten, harass, coerce, intimidate, and bully, our farmworkers to extract their hard-earned wages for the benefit of the union.  This unlawful “taking” of farm and ranch families’ property via union access was recently condemned by the Court.  Unfortunately, that condemnation would not to be adhered to under this regulation.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, the regulation suggests that the will of the Congress, as dysfunctional as it can be, doesn’t have to be adhered to either.  The National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) passed by the Congress and signed by President Roosevelt, exempted agriculture from unionization efforts under Federal regulation.  The creators of this new regulation have indicated that they mustn’t heed the will of the Congress, like the way they think they do not need to heed the will of the Court.  They argue the NLRA does not preempt agricultural unionization under this new Federal regulation.

The Administration is taking advantage of Congress’ failings, pressing their agenda ahead of the people’s.  This chaos that exists must be stilled like the placid surface of the Potomac River I see on my way to the airport.  It must stop if farm and ranch families, and the American consumers who rely on them, are to survive.