October 18, 2024
For Immediate Release
Contact: Michael Marsh, President and CEO
(202) 629-9320
(Arlington, VA) The U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Kentucky has set a hearing for a lawsuit filed by the National Council of Agricultural Employers (NCAE), alongside several agricultural associations and individual farmers, to decide the fate of the Department of Labor’s (Department) unlawful and unconstitutional Final Rule entitled, “Improving Protections for Workers in Temporary Agricultural Employment in the United States” (Rule). After receiving NCAE’s Motion for Preliminary Injunction and Stay last night, the Court issued an Order setting the hearing for November 4, 2024, at 9:00 AM ET.
“America’s farm and ranch families are grateful that the Court in Kentucky wasted no time in treating this matter seriously,” stated Michael Marsh, NCAE President and CEO. “This Rule unequivocally and unlawfully violates the rights of America’s farmers and ranchers by stripping employers of the due process rights afforded to them by the Constitution, imposing new illogical duties on farmers that infantilize and jeopardize the safety of their farmworkers, and providing America’s foreign competition a financial advantage by artificially inflating the regulatory costs to the detriment of America’s producers as well as consumers.”
This hearing is the latest update on the nationwide status of the Rule. On August 29th, the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia issued a preliminary injunction in the case of Kansas, et al. vs. U.S. Department of Labor which enjoined the Rule from taking effect in Georgia, Kansas, South Carolina, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, as well as for certain individuals and entities, leaving farmers and ranchers with operations in the two-thirds of states not covered by the injunction vulnerable to substantive provisions of the rule.
In the injunction, the Georgia Court explained that “[a]gencies may play the sorcerer’s apprentice but not the sorcerer himself. The [Rule] is an attempt by the [Department] to play the sorcerer. The [Department] may assist Congress but may not become Congress.”
The Department issued a statement on their website on September 10th that they would begin processing applications from employers not covered by the injunction in accordance with the Final Rule on September 12th. They further stated they would process applications for employers covered by the injunction in accordance with the regulations that were in effect prior, thereby creating a new multiple-application process.
On September 16th, NCAE filed a lawsuit in the Eastern District of Kentucky in hopes of expanding the injunction to protect America’s farm and ranch families nationwide from this pernicious rule.
“NCAE is hopeful the Court in Kentucky will dispense with this rule once and for all so that farmers and ranchers nationwide can get back to what they do best—ensuring that Americans and those around the world have food to enjoy on their tables.”
NCAE is the national trade association focusing on agricultural labor issues from the employer’s viewpoint.
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