California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation

Farmworker layoffs and cuts in hourly work are punctuating a renewed call for a higher minimum wage for those California laborers, who face housing struggles and, according to a new study, severe health impacts due in part to the lower pay of their jobs.

Farm employers meanwhile, say they, too, are struggling amid uncertain economic conditions, with rising supply-chain costs and market upheaval fueled in part by trade wars and tariff battles touched off by the Trump administration.

Leading agriculture trade groups are pushing back on the call for a higher minimum wage, pointing to the the pressure already on employers to comply with California’s rollout of overtime laws governing farmworker pay.

The Health in Partnership report, published in March, raises timely questions for a state that is the nation’s leading agricultural powerhouse while also priding itself on being a pioneer in economic equity and civil rights.

Multiple farm labor advocacy groups participated in the study, which drew on interviews and focus groups with farmworkers across the North Bay, Central Valley and Central Coast, as well as state and national health and economic data.

“Low wages are a public health crisis,” said Elana Muldavin, research project director at Health in Partnership, a nearly 20-year-old nonprofit.

The call for wage gains comes as employers across many sectors of agribusiness report difficulty filling open jobs, meet rising payroll costs and comply with new layers of regulation and enforcement.

Contract labor and increased reliance on H-2A visa workers, brought in from abroad, are two alternatives.

Labor unions are fighting in court a federal change that slashed minimum wages for H-2A workers, undercutting the domestic labor market, according to unions. The change dropped hourly wages from about $17.43 to a tiered structure, based on skill level, of $13.70 and $17.22, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

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California (CA) is home to nearly 885,000 farmworkers working a year, 51% of whom are undocumented. These rural communities are farmworkers, low-wage workers, undocumented individuals, and mixed-status families experiencing high poverty, immigration vulnerability, limited English proficiency, all while experiencing low access to legal representation.

These communities are concentrated in areas labeled “legal deserts”, where access to attorneys is significantly low. While CA’s overall attorney-to-population ratio in urban areas is estimated to be 1:175, in rural areas it averages 1:626. These “legal deserts” are structural barriers to justice.

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As we approach Big Day of Giving- tomorrow May 7th😍- check out the work we do on our featured campaigns!

At CRLAF, we believe legislative work is crucial because it proactively creates guardrails for impacted populations to create real world change. Legislative work uplifts collective power and brings the voices and concerns of those at the forefront tackling systemic injustices to the decision-making table. CRLAF works as the vanguard for elevating farmworker needs to federal and state levels to impact legislative change.

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