Month: June 2025

NCAE Celebrates Suspension of Worker Protection Rule

| Press Release, Uncategorized

June 22, 2025

For Immediate Release

Contact:       Michael Marsh, President and CEO

                        (202) 629-9320

NCAE Celebrates Suspension of Worker Protection Rule

(Arlington, VA) The National Council of Agricultural Employers (NCAE), its members, and the agricultural community nationwide are celebrating the suspension of a rule that falsely cast shade on America’s agricultural community.

Late Friday afternoon, the Department of Labor (DOL) announced that they are suspending the “Improving Protections for Workers in Temporary Agriculture Employment in the United States” Rule, commonly known as the Worker Protection Rule. The announcement of the suspension comes after various parts of the Rule were enjoined in multiple District Courts because of legal action brought by NCAE and other agricultural organizations throughout the United States.

“NCAE and our members were shocked and offended by the promulgation of the Worker Protection Rule,” explained Michael Marsh, NCAE’s President and CEO. “America’s farm and ranch families care about their workers and work each day to ensure that their business operations are in compliance with local, state and federal regulations at significant expense.”

“From the outset, it was clear that the pejorative nature and tenor of the Rule was intended to feed and foster false and inappropriate narratives about America’s agricultural community. America’s farmers and ranchers are excited and relieved that this Administration put this Rule out to pasture.”

“NCAE met with the Department just after this proposed regulation was published to warn them that the Rule was fatally flawed. In that meeting, the Council explained that the NPRM was an inartful and undisguised attempt to circumvent the Supreme Court’s decision in Cedar Point Nursery v. Hassid (2021). It was also violative of the will of Congress under the National Labor Relations Act of 1935. NCAE told the Department it is not the role of regulators to legislate. That role belongs solely to Congress under Article I of the Constitution.”

“The Department frustratingly did not heed the advice of the agricultural community and promulgated the Rule in 2024. However, America’s farmers and ranchers do not back down from a fight when the cause is just and the battle is necessary,” said Marsh.

As a result of their poor judgement in promulgating a rule that was both inappropriate in nature and offensive to the agricultural community, the Department was met with legal action brought by NCAE alongside legal actions brought by our agricultural colleagues once the Rule was finalized. Those legal actions resulted in three injunctions against the regulation in different jurisdictions. The Courts agreed with America’s farm and ranch families.

“Finally, after three different Courts blocked the rule three different times, it appears the Department finally agrees with NCAE and our colleagues,” explained Marsh. “We are glad we could convince them that America’s farm and ranch families are deserving of support, not false shade. This is a big win for America’s agricultural employers and the people working alongside them who are critical to our nation’s food security.”

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

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Judge Sets Hearing Date For Challenge to Adverse Effect Wage Rate

| Press Release, Uncategorized

June 2 2025

For Immediate Release

Contact:       Michael Marsh, President and CEO

                        (202) 629-9320

Judge Sets Hearing Date For Challenge to Adverse Effect Wage Rate

(Arlington, VA) A Federal U.S. District judge in the Middle District of Florida has decided that the next step in a yearslong battle for farmers’ and ranchers’ rights to make their own business decisions can take place. After months of delay and dragging-on, U.S. District Court Judge Charlene Honeywell set a date for oral arguments in the National Council of Agricultural Employers’ (NCAE) Motion for Summary Judgment challenging the legality of the Department of Labor’s (DOL) Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR).

After receiving a third request from the Department of Justice (DOJ) for the court to issue a 90-day stay in the Council’s litigation, Judge Honeywell denied the stay. The Court noted that the “latest motion fails to demonstrate that an additional stay is appropriate at this time, particularly in light of plaintiffs’ allegations of ongoing harm.” NCAE’s challenge of this unlawful rule began in April 2023 following the Biden Administration’s promulgation of the AEWR Final Rule in February 2023.

“We are grateful to the court for disallowing unending delay tactics,” stated Michael Marsh, NCAE’s President and CEO. “America’s agricultural community is being forced to foot-the-bill of this illegal wage rate with each passing pay period. America’s farmers and ranchers need relief and need it now.”

Oral arguments on NCAE’s Motion for Summary Judgment on the AEWR rule are now scheduled to take place on Tuesday, July 1, 2025, in Federal District Court in Tampa.

“The overzealous Biden Administration’s DOL forced America’s farm and ranch families to pay this unlawful wage for years, costing them billions as our food production moves offshore at an alarming rate,” stated Marsh. “If the grocery-buying public wishes to find American-grown food on their grocery shelves, this regulation must be stopped. The deference the Court afforded the DOL in finding the regulation could not be enjoined, was overruled by the Supreme Court last term. We are hopeful that the new Administration will see the common-sense arguments made by the Council and our colleagues and undo this illegal wage-setting policy promulgated by Washington bureaucrats.”
NCAE is the national trade association focusing on agricultural labor issues from the employer’s viewpoint.

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