The Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Association (GFVA) has held their Labor Forum in November for several years. This year, they’ve moved it to August. Since November is bad for most row crop producers and of course ginners, this move is quite welcome. It should allow more of our members to attend.

Andy and I have attended this forum for a number of years and have been sponsors for some time. We hope you’ll take some time to check out the web site and consider registering for the Forum. Although it is targeted at H-2A users, both H-2A and non-H-2A employers will find something in this program. As the program develops, the site will include the speakers and topics.

Mark your calendars today and see the attached Flyer.

Last week, the Biden administration announced changes to the Wage and Hour rules regarding exemptions from overtime. Many employers put administrative and executive type employees on salary and expect them to be exempt from overtime. Salaried doesn’t necessarily mean they are exempt on its own. These new rules will make that exemption a good bit harder to take and could significantly affect our members.

As mentioned above just because you pay an employee a salary it doesn’t mean that they are automatically exempted from overtime. It is possible to pay someone overtime when they are on salary but that is beyond the scope of this article.

The most common “misclassification” violation we have seen in gins over the years is claiming an employee is exempt from overtime when they are not. In order for the executive or administrative employee to be exempt from overtime they must meet two things. The first is the duties of the job must meet the exempt duties and they must be paid above a certain amount on a salary basis. The duties have not changed and can be found in the Fact Sheets HERE.

What has changed is the minimum weekly salary that these employees must be paid in order to qualify even if they meet the duties of executive, or administrative work. Beginning July 1, 2024, employees must make $844 per week or $43,888 per year and starting January 1, 2025, employees must make $1,128 per week or $58,656 per year. The next change will be determined by the department by a formula by July,1 2027.

What does this mean? Many gins use the executive or administrative exemption for key office and gin employees. Careful consideration of these new pay levels in combination with the duties found in the Fact Sheet 17 linked above must be given. It is very easy to mis-classify a worker as exempt when they’re not and this rule makes it that much harder.

Wage and Hour’s Page on New Rule

You can find information on paying a non-exempt worker a salary. It can be done but it takes some planning. Search the internet for “salaried non-exempt” or “calculate overtime for salaried employee” and you’ll find a lot of articles by attorneys and HR professionals on how to navigate those waters.

DSF

The Department of Labor uses the USDA NASS Farm Labor survey to develop the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR) for H-2A purposes. For many years the average wage in the FLS has become the AEWR for the following calendar year. The reason for the AEWR is that in the law that established the H-2A program, it says that the importation of workers shall not have an ‘adverse effect’ on local wages. The agency uses this survey to make sure the wages will not be impacted by bringing foreign workers in and displacing local workers with ‘cheaper’ foreign workers.

The FLS is conducted over the course of a year by the National Ag Statistics Service (NASS). NASS has been collecting this data for many decades. It is not collected for the purpose of use by the DoL and DoL has no influence on how the survey is conducted. It is more targeted (more surveys done) than the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) Occupational Employment Wage Survey (OEWS) in the agricultural community and is ‘thought’ to be a better representation of the ag community as a whole.

The Survey shows an increase in most Southeastern states of about a dollar per hour (See Table). The new wages will kick in when the DoL publishes them in the Federal Register. This will likely be right at the end of the year. Watch your inbox or keep up with your agent or contractor for exactly when the higher wages are due.

We have a lot of problems with just using the FLS as the only means to determine the AEWR. The Farm Labor Survey, as mentioned before was not designed as a survey for AEWR purposes. NASS does not discriminate between H-2A users and non-users. Workers in corresponding employment or neighbors can be influenced by the H-2A wage locally. More H-2A workers are being employed today than ever before. Additionally, the FLS does not take into account any of the other expenses that go a long with the program such as inbound and outbound transportation, housing, meals (in some instances) and in the case of more and more states, overtime for farm workers. While the FLS may capture more workers in ag than the OEWS and may be a better statistical representation of pure wage it does NOT take into account the expense to the employer (effective wage on the employer).

We will have more information as it comes out.

DSF