HIGHER WAGES, LOWER PAY
Lawsuit highlights Jamaican workers’ fears of reduced earnings and job losses on unionised US farms
Published:Sunday | February 8, 2026 | 12:09 AMSashana Small - Staff Reporter
A Jamaican farmworker has joined a legal challenge to New York’s Farm Labourers’ Fair Labour Practices Act (FLFLPA), raising concerns that unionisation – while promising higher wage rates – could ultimately leave farmworkers with less money in their pockets and fewer job opportunities.
Ricardo Bell, a longtime agricultural worker at Porpiglia Farms in New York’s Hudson Valley, is intervening in a lawsuit brought by the New York State Vegetable Growers Association and five farms, including Porpiglia. The case challenges the state’s card check system, which allows a union to be certified once a majority of workers sign authorisation cards, rather than through a secret-ballot vote.
Bell, who is from St Mary, says the system resulted in workers being bound to United Farm Workers (UFW) representation without a clear understanding of the financial consequences – particularly mandatory union dues that reduce take-home pay even where wage rates increase.
Bell alleges that UFW organisers leveraged a federal COVID-19 relief programme to gain workers’ trust and secure signatures that later counted toward union certification.
According to Bell, workers at Porpiglia Farms – an apple orchard employing more than 30 Jamaican workers – were told the union could assist them in receiving a one-time US$600 payment through the US Department of Agriculture Farm and Food Worker Relief Grant Program.
The programme distributed roughly US$670 million through nonprofit organisations to farm, meatpacking, and grocery workers for COVID-related expenses incurred between January 2020 and May 2023, with applications opening in late 2022.
Bell claims workers did not understand that signing paperwork connected to the payment would also commit them to union representation.
“[They told farmers] ‘I’ll get you the US$600, but you gotta sign this card’,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.
“The card that they signed was the union card. Farmers were tricked,” he alleged.
“They used coercion, which is a sign of deceit to get us to sign to a union in which I don’t see what their purpose is. What they have to offer is not going to make any difference from what we have been getting freely without their intervention,” he rgued.
Bell previously organised two petitions with coworkers to decertify the UFW, both of which were dismissed by New York’s Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), the agency responsible for enforcing agricultural labour law. PERB also rejected claims that workers were misled.
Despite this, Bell and another farmworker, Jean Estrame, were granted permission on January 8 to intervene in the broader legal challenge. Their participation centres on concerns that the card check system allows for intimidation and denies workers a private and independent way to express their choice.
HIGHER WAGES, LOWER
TAKE-HOME PAY
The UFW has successfully secured collective bargaining agreements at two upstate New York apple farms with predominantly Jamaican workforces: Wafler Farms and Cahoon Farms. These contracts include wage increases, retirement plans, grievance procedures, and guarantees around tools, equipment, and protective gear.
Armando Elenes, UFW secretary-treasurer, has rejected claims that workers were tricked into unionisation and argues that union contracts clearly improve earnings.
“Farm workers at Porpiglia have won a union contract. Regrettably, the company refuses to implement this contract or pay the wages they are required to. Under the UFW contract, workers at Porpiglia will make $21.46 an hour,” Elenes told The Sunday Gleaner. “Without the contract, workers at Porpiglia will make only $16.35 an hour. That’s more than US$5 an hour difference. That’s thousands of dollars less a year for farm workers from Jamaica to take home to their families.”
Bell does not dispute that unions may negotiate higher hourly wages. His concern, however, is that those gains are offset by mandatory union dues, resulting in workers taking home less money overall.
But declaring that “the union is all about making money”, Bell said farmers are also concerned about the dues they have to pay for representation.
Unions require only a simple majority to be certified, after which all workers on the farm are required to pay dues – even those who did not vote for union representation.
“They’re saying, we’ll push for you to get US$20, but even if they push for us to get US$20.83, when they draw their dues from it, we’d be receiving way less than if they weren’t around,” Bell said.
Another senior Jamaican worker at Porpiglia Farms, who requested anonymity, expressed similar concerns.
“I am there for over 20 years and we work without the union. The farm works very good. Mi neva have no problem with the farm. We got paid as we work hourly. Dem neva short-pay wi,” he said. “This union now, they gonna draw union dues from us. That is out of our salary.”
Elenes explained that union dues amount to three per cent of earnings – three cents on every dollar – and said those funds allow the UFW to secure benefits employers would not otherwise provide.
“Farm bosses offer nothing like what the union offers, and have shown time after time that they will pay workers as little as they can. The boss lies about the union to keep workers poor and himself rich,” he said.
FEAR OF JOB LOSSES
Bell says his concerns extend beyond weekly paycheques to the long-term sustainability of farm jobs for Jamaican workers.
“These farms are generational farms, and the new generation is seeing that there are problems and they will cut us out,” he said.
Jamaicans have travelled legally to the United States for agricultural work since 1943, primarily under the H-2A visa programme. Over the past five years, the number of Jamaican farmworkers has averaged about 4,500 annually, though figures fluctuate due to weather and market conditions.
History, Bell argues, shows how quickly jobs can disappear. In the 1990s, Jamaican sugar workers in Florida sued sugar companies for underpayment. While workers received individual payouts, companies rapidly mechanised operations and shifted away from Jamaican labour.
More recently, preliminary data from Jamaica’s Ministry of Labour showed that the country lost 380 overseas agricultural jobs in 2025 compared to 2024. About half of those losses were attributed to employers going out of business, diversifying, or switching away from Jamaican workers, though Jamaica recorded a net gain of 80 jobs overall.
In the United States, more than 140,000 farms closed between 2017 and 2022, according to the USDA Census of Agriculture.
H-2A COST PRESSURE
Under the H-2A programme, employers must provide free housing, pay transportation costs, guarantee three-quarters of expected earnings, and pay the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR), a special minimum wage designed to prevent foreign labour from undercutting US workers.
Recent policy changes reduced the AEWR from US$18.83 to US$16 an hour and allow employers to deduct housing costs – moves welcomed by growers as necessary cost relief. Employers argue these changes will improve competitiveness and increase legal hiring.
Unionised farms, however, are not affected by these reductions.
John Hollay, president and CEO of the National Council of Agricultural Employers, said concerns remain about the card check system and the unknown effects of expanded unionisation.
“Wages that have been paid out through the H-2A programme have been dramatically inflated over the years,” he told The Sunday Gleaner.
He added that the system used to set wages has been criticised by both employers and unions as inaccurate.
While he said the overall implications of farm unionisation are still unclear, he warned that scale and cost remain critical questions.
FRAGILE BALANCE
Jamaica’s Ministry of Labour maintains that the overseas farm work programme remains vital to national development.
“The programme, over the past 43 years, has provided seasonal employment for thousands of Jamaicans and we have seen where communities and families have been able to raise their standard of living through this programme where persons are able to seasonally work overseas, have that boost in their income that helps them to pay for their housing, send their children to school, and basically improve their standard of living,” Permanent Secretary Colette Roberts Risden told The Suunday Gleaner.
For Bell, the issue is not whether unions promise improvements – it is whether workers actually take home more money and retain long-term employment.
“We are not against progress,” he said. “But if the end result is that money is being taken out of our pay and farms start cutting jobs, then that is not helping the worker.”