Lungren Addresses the Need for Agricultural Workers

Washington, DC – Today, Congressman Dan Lungren (R-Gold River- CA), in an effort to ensure the United States agricultural industry has the labor it needs to provide food for America and the world, introduced the Legal Agricultural Workforce Act. The legislation will establish a market based approach to meeting the demand for agricultural labor.  The proposed bill will do the following:

• As is the case with American workers, these nonimmigrant agricultural workers would have the freedom to move among different employers and would have the protection of all applicable federal, state, and local employment related laws applicable to United States agricultural workers. 
• Workers would be admitted to the United States to work in agricultural for up to 10 months in any 12 month period. 
• This proposal would abandon the bureaucratic structure of the H-2A program and would be administered by the Department of Agriculture.   

• To fund costs of the program employers would make contributions into a trust fund in an amount equivalent to the Social Security tax and the Federal Unemployment Tax Act.   As an incentive to return home, the employee portion of the Social Security tax would be refundable to them on their return home from the U.S. 

Lungren, a supporter of E-Verify, realizes the failures of the existing H-2A program and the need for a viable commonsense initiative that is both flexible and responsive to the needs of the nation’s agriculture industry.