HomePosts Tagged "Employment Law"

Cornell Agricultural Workforce Development Expands Team to Support Farm Employers and Employees

Cornell Agricultural Workforce Development is committed to helping farms create exceptional workplaces staffed by engaged, productive employees. This mission is strongly supported by New York’s agricultural industry and state government partners. As a result of this support, we’re excited to welcome two talented individuals to our team this summer, significantly expanding our capacity to serve farm employers and employees across the state.

Regulatory Extension Associate: Lucas Smith, J.D.
Picture of Lucas SmithLucas Smith joins us as an Extension Associate with a focus on regulatory compliance with state and federal labor laws. A native of Clifton Springs in the Finger Lakes region, Lucas earned a Bachelor of Science in Agricultural Sciences from Cornell University, concentrating in business management and policy. He recently completed his law degree at Albany Law School.

Lucas brings a wealth of relevant experience, including work on farms, a student role with Cornell Ag Workforce Development, and positions at a private law firm and the New York State Public Employment Relations Board (PERB). In his new role, Lucas will expand our extension education and research efforts to help farm owners and employees better understand and comply with complex regulatory requirements. Our goal is to support farms in maintaining compliance while operating efficiently in today’s dynamic regulatory landscape

Organization Development Extension Associate: Kaitlyn Lutz, VMD DABVP
Picture of Kaitlyn LutzDr. Kaitlyn Lutz joins the team as an Extension Associate specializing in organizational development. Most recently, Kaitlyn worked with Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Northwest NY Dairy, Livestock, and Field Crops Team as a bilingual dairy educator. She also brings prior experience as a practicing veterinarian in Western New York.

In her new role, Kaitlyn will apply her communication and leadership skills to help farms address human resource challenges and optimize organizational structures. She will lead efforts to assess and enhance workplace culture, design strategic change interventions, and align leadership with production goals to drive performance. Kaitlyn will also conduct applied research to develop and refine tools for organizational development in farm settings. Her work will support farms across New York’s diverse agriculture sectors, including dairy, fruit, vegetable, grape, and greenhouse/nursery operations.

Learn more about the Cornell Agricultural Workforce Development team at our website.

By Richard Stup, Cornell University. Permission granted to repost, quote, and reprint with author attribution.
The post Cornell Ag Workforce Development Expands Team to Support Farm Employers and Employees appeared in The Ag Workforce Journal.

Cornell Agricultural Workforce Development logo

Treat H2A and Domestic Workers the Same

The H2A Temporary Agricultural Guest Worker program is designed to allow foreign workers into the country when a shortage of domestic workers exists to meet work requirements. One foundation of the program is the protection of U.S. domestic workers, in other words, growers can’t bring in foreign workers by discriminating or discouraging domestic U.S. workers who are willing to do the job. Growers, by and large, try to do the right thing and are not eager to discriminate against anyone, foreign or domestic, they just want willing workers who can do a good job. When a U.S. grower participates in the H2A program and brings in foreign workers, any U.S. worker who performs the same type of job is known as a “corresponding” worker in the language of the program. Recently, I heard Kalen Fraser of the Labor Brain share some tips about how growers should treat corresponding workers. Here are some tips she shared to avoid problems with the U.S. Department of Labor:

  • Remember to provide the same treatment in all ways for corresponding U.S. workers. Employers often strive to “take care” of foreign workers because they are so far from home, this can be a problem if foreign workers receive special treatment that corresponding workers do not.
  • Offer the same transportation and housing benefits to domestic workers. This may seem odd if the corresponding workers live nearby and have their own car, but if these benefits are offered to foreign workers then they must also be offered to corresponding workers. Consider getting it in writing if U.S. workers decline such benefits.
  • Don’t charge corresponding workers differently for benefits such as meals.
  • Write a good job description in your H2A contract that clearly spells out all of the work that employees will do. Use the same job description with corresponding workers. Make sure it is up to date.
  • If U.S. workers are in separate groups from foreign workers, make sure they are not given harder assignments or offered fewer hours than foreign workers.
  • Avoid discouraging U.S. applicants with discriminatory comments like, “you’ll have to brush up on your Spanish,” or, “local people just don’t last in this kind of work.”
  • Be prompt and pleasant when returning phone calls from U.S. applicants, be sure that your office employees don’t treat U.S. applicants or workers differently.

Kalen worked at one time as a U.S. Department of Labor investigator. She said a common investigation practice is to get the list of U.S. applicants who applied for jobs and call them to ask about their experience, she was looking for a pattern of them being treated rudely or discouraged. Keep this in mind as you build your human resource processes and train your management and HR staff to use the H2A program.

You can find helpful information in U.S. DOL’s Employer Guide to H2A.