Employment Security Department Looking At Charging Farmers That Use Foreign Workers

The Employment Security Department has proposed a program in which Washington farmer would pay additional fees for using foreign workers.  The ESD said the additional funds would be used to beef up oversight of the H2A program.  It’s estimated that Washington farmers will hire roughly 30,000 foreign workers in 2018.

According to Capital Press, the ESD proposal would charge farms $1,000 to apply to use H-2A workers, plus $100 per worker for the first 1,000.  After that, the fee would drop to $50 per employee. ESD estimates that if the fees were in place next year, they would raise $3.18 million.

The number of foreign workers in Washington has greatly increased over recent years, while funding from the federal level to monitor the H2A has not changed, and ESD says they don’t have enough money to do a quality job.

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