California Farm Labor: The ALRA at 50 - Summary Report

UC Davis hosted a farm labor conference May 21-23, 2025 conference that examined current farm labor issues, continuities and changes in California farm labor over the half century since the enactment of the ALRA in 1975, and private programs to certify good employers, issues faced by female farm workers, and California’s minimum wages for 24/7 sheep and goat herders. The UCD farm labor conference highlights analysis of data to enact evidence-based policies.

Speaker presentations are posted on the events page.
More farm labor information is at Migration Dialogue.

This report summarizes the presentations and the discussions for participants and funders. There were three major themes:

• California agriculture is in a precarious economic position due to overproduction, economic and trade uncertainty, rising labor costs, and new groundwater regulations. With notable exceptions such as beef, most farmers are not making significant profits, which is reflected in the declining value of orchards and vineyards.
• Farm labor costs are increasing faster than nonfarm labor costs as settled (including unauthorized) US farm workers exit the farm workforce and most newcomers are H-2A workers who must be paid the AEWR of $19.97 an hour and provided with housing and transportation at no cost to workers. Growers are mechanizing, building housing to employ more H-2A workers, and switching to non-labor intensive crops to cope with higher labor costs.
• About 10,000 of the state’s 800,000+ farm workers are covered by union contracts, and there are few prospects for a repeat of the late 1970s widespread unionization despite the favorable legal environment. Alternatives to unions are proliferating, including NGO worker centers that assist farm workers and private certification systems that enable buyers to assess produce suppliers for compliance with labor laws.

Employment and FLCs

There is a 2 to 1 ratio between the number of unique farm workers and average employment. An average 400,000 workers are employed in California agriculture (NAICS 11). This means that monthly snapshots of agricultural employment during the second week of the month average 400,000, which is four times more than the 100,000 average employment in California janitorial services (NAICS 56172). The total number of farm workers and janitors is higher due to worker turnover, and higher still for farm workers due to peak seasonal needs for farm workers between May and September. 

Average employment is a measure of the full-time equivalent (FTE) jobs, allowing computation of the ratio of unique workers to FTE jobs. In most of the nonfarm economy, the worker-to-job ratio is low, so that 1.1 or 1.2 unique workers are employed sometime during the year for each average or FTE job. In California agriculture, the ratio of workers to jobs is 2 or more: some 900,000 unique workers filled the state’s average 415,000 farm jobs in 2023. This means that one FTE farm job could reflect two farm workers each employed for six months or one worker employed for eight months and another for four months. 

California agriculture employs a third of US hired workers because its Mediterranean climate and infrastructure allow the production of high-value fruit, vegetable, and horticultural specialty (FVH) commodities. Two-thirds of the state’s $60 billion in annual farm sales are FVH commodities, including lettuce and strawberries that combined account for 10 percent of California’s farm sales. Three-fourths of California farm sales are crops, and crops employ 90 percent of California farm workers.

An important change is who employs the farm workers. In 1990, three crop farm workers (NAICS 111) were hired directly by farm operators for each worker who was brought to a farm by a nonfarm crop support service firm such as a farm labor contractors (FLCs in NAICS 1151). In 2009, average crop support employment surpassed direct-hire crop employment, and today average crop support employment is 1.5x average direct-hire employment in California crop agriculture.

Crop support employment is more seasonal than direct-hire crop employment because farmers bring crews of workers to their farms only when they are needed. Worker turnover is very high for crop support firms such as FLCs, so that 3 or more unique workers may be hired to fill one FTE job. This means that 3 FLC employees, each employed for four months in summer, can add up to 12 months of employment or one full-time equivalent job. 

About 90 percent of California’s seasonal hired workers were born in Mexico, and half of these Mexican-born workers are unauthorized. Most unauthorized farm workers arrived in the 1990s and early 2000s in their 20s and 30s and are now in their 40s and 50s and aging out of physically demanding farm jobs. Mexican H-2A guest workers in their 20s and 30s are the fresh blood in the farm workforce.

Mechanization, Migrants, and Imports

Farm labor costs are rising, prompting MMI responses: mechanization, migrant H-2A workers, and imports. Labor-saving mechanization is the normal response to rising farm labor costs, and both public and private efforts are underway to develop robots to replace hand workers in apples, strawberries, and other crops. 

Developing machines to replace hand workers is difficult, and success requires a systems approach that combines:

• Biology or the development of plants, vines, and trees whose produce ripens uniformly so that a robot needs to make only one pass through the field to harvest the crop
• Farming systems that plant dwarf apple trees in rows and train limbs on wires to make the apples visible and orchards resemble vineyards
• Robots to detect and detach the desired fruit or vegetable quickly without damage to fresh produce or perennial trees and vines 

The economic feasibility of robots depends on (1) their cost, (2) picking efficiency (the share of marketable produce picked by the machine) and (3) speed or pick cycle time (the time required to pick and convey an apple or berry). To compete with humans, machines must be efficient and fast:

• humans are believed to be 95%+ efficient at picking the marketable produce
• humans pick one apple or strawberry about ever two seconds 

Current machines are not efficient or fast enough to compete with hand workers, including H-2A workers who cost about $30 an hour in wages, housing, and other costs. Rising farm labor costs combined with biological, farming, and engineering advances may create an X-point within a decade, the point where machines are cheaper than hand workers.

Several issues slow mechanization. There is no integrated firm that combines biological and engineering research with production and marketing. Universities, seed companies and some marketers develop new plant varieties, farmers decide on farming or production systems, and engineers develop machines for current and future farming systems. Many farm robots are developed by start ups whose venture capital investors seek a large return for breakthroughs. However, a combination of technical challenges, slow changes to farming systems, and limited markets for robots makes it hard for startups to succeed.

An alternative to machines is more migrant H-2A workers. California has a third of US hired farm workers but only 10 percent of US H-2A workers. The number of California H-2A workers is increasing for several reasons, including settled legal and unauthorized workers aging out of farm work and their US-educated children finding nonfarm jobs. Farmers who employ H-2A workers have high labor costs, including a minimum wage (AEWR) of almost $20 an hour rather than the state’s $16.50 minimum wage, plus housing, transport to and from work sites, and recruitment that must be paid by the employer and not deducted from worker wages. Most California H-2As are employed by FLCs who move migrant H-2A workers between client farms.

The third alternative is for California farmers to switch to less labor-intensive crops, as from labor-intensive fruits to tree nuts, which increases imports of citrus, table grapes, and berries from lower-wage countries. 

Fresh produce imports account for 60 percent of US fruit consumption and 40 percent of US vegetable consumption. Mexico is the source of half of US fresh fruit imports and three-fourths of US fresh vegetable imports. Over 800,000 workers are employed on Mexican farms that export fresh produce to the US, similar to the 800,000+ workers employed on California farms. If the US imported no fresh fruits and vegetables from Mexico, more Mexican-born workers may be employed on US farms.

The US imports $65 billion and exports $35 billion worth of horticultural commodities a year, making horticultural imports 30 percent of US farm imports and 20 percent of US farm exports. The leading horticultural imports include avocados and tomatoes, each worth $3.5 billion, bananas worth $2.5 billion, and blueberries, table grapes, and bell peppers each worth about $2 billion. 

The fastest-growing US imports include avocados, raspberries, blueberries, and strawberries. The availability of these imported fruits contributes to rising per capita consumption of 9 pounds of avocados per person per year, 1 pound of raspberries, 3 pounds of blueberries, and 8 pounds of strawberries.

H-2A and Overtime

The H-2A program allows farm employers to be certified to employ H-2A workers if there are not enough US workers (including settled unauthorized workers) to fill seasonal farm jobs at the AEWR wage. The number of US jobs certified to be filled by H-2A migrants quadrupled over the past decade to almost 400,000 in 2025. Since H-2A migrants are in the US an average six months, they fill 200,000 FTE jobs or almost 20 percent of average employment in US crop agriculture.

The H-2A program is most used in the southeastern states such as Florida and Georgia, where H-2A workers harvest most citrus and onions. However, half of US hired farm workers are on the West Coast, which makes the Pacific states the focus of H-2A growth. California’s H-2A jobs are concentrated in coastal counties with expensive housing and significant strawberry production: a third are in Monterey and Santa Barbara counties.

None of California’s FY24 job orders require a minimum level of education, two-thirds offer employer-owned housing (the other third used motels or other public accommodations to house workers), and over 90 percent require some farm work experience. Almost all H-2A jobs require repetitive motions and frequent stooping, and two-thirds offer piece rate wages.

AEWRs are the special minimum wage that must be paid to H-2A workers and US workers in similar jobs, at least $19.97 in 2025 in California when the state’s minimum wage is $16.50. Do AEWRs that are higher than the minimum wage increase the wages of US farm workers or act as a ceiling to hold down wages for US farm workers?
Researchers estimate that a 10 percent increase in the AEWR raises the wages of US farm workers by three percent. There are two major reasons:

• farmers seeking more workers may increase the wages they offer to US workers to avoid the housing and other costs of H-2A workers
• US workers in areas with H-2A workers know the AEWR and expect farm employers to pay them the AEWR

California’s AB 1066 fully phased in 8/40 overtime wages for farm workers in 2025. What are the effects of 8/40 overtime on farm worker earnings? NAWS data suggest that employers who used to offer workers 50 or more hours of work each week reduced weekly hours by up to five hours which, at $20 an hour, reduced worker earnings by $100 a week, although they have more time for their families and other non-work activities.

Farm employers have adjusted to overtime by reducing workweeks and hiring more workers to get work done. If California provided a tax credit for the overtime wages paid to farm workers, would farm employers return to longer workweeks for some workers?

H-2A Workers and FLCs

Over 90 percent of H-2A workers are from Mexico, raising the question of how many Mexicans want to work as seasonal farm workers in the US. Interviews with Mexicans in poor southern states such as Oaxaca find that about half of rural residents would like to become H-2A workers. 

The average household income of rural residents in southern Mexico is $500 to $600 a month. Surveys find that half of rural residents would accept a US H-2A job that paid at least $1,300 a month. The minimum US AEWR is $15 an hour, so H-2A workers who are employed 40 hours a week for 4.33 weeks a month earn at least $2,600 a month, twice the reservation wage in rural Mexico. The California AEWR of $20 an hour or about $3,500 a month is 3x the rural Mexican reservation wage. 

The average Mexican H-2A worker is employed six months and earns $15,000 to $20,000. H-2A workers remit or return with 80 to 90 percent of their US earnings, and households with an H-2A worker spend more on food and other daily living expenses than households that do not receive remittances. 

Households with H-2A workers also spend more on housing, education, and health care for children, so that a major effect of migration and remittances is investment in children that allows upward mobility in Mexico. H-2A workers from agricultural areas may not invest their savings in farming if their educated children move to cities for education and do not return.

Farm Labor Contractors (FLCs) recruit and supervise workers on client farms for a fee that covers the wages paid to workers, payroll taxes, and the cost of operating the FLC business. FLCs receive a commission above the wage paid to workers of 35 to 45 percent, less than the 50 to 100 percent commission charged by the nonfarm temp firms that provide workers to nonfarm clients such as Manpower.

FLCs account for a higher share of US H-2A employment than US crop employment, especially in fruit and vegetable agriculture. FLC-supplied H-2A crews dominate citrus harvesting in Florida, vegetable harvesting in Arizona, corn detasseling in the midwest, and seasonal farm tasks in other states.

Health and Safety

Farm work is dangerous. There were 45 fatal injuries in California agriculture in 2023, including 15 or a third in crop support (NAICS 1151). Agriculture (NAICS 11) has the highest fatality rate among major industries, 15.4 per 100,000 workers in 2023. Farm worker injuries are likely underreported.

California has an extensive regulatory framework to protect farm worker health and safety. Farm employers must have written plans to minimize injuries and illnesses and protocols to respond to dangers that range from heat to wildfire smoke. The most common citations issued by Cal/OSHA are for failures to have written injury and illness prevention plans. Some farm employers buy safety plans from providers but do not review or implement them.

Cal/OSHA receives about 10,000 valid complaints a year and issues 12,000 citations for violations of safety laws and regulations (not all citations are issued in response to complaints), resulting in about $40 million in penalties assessed on farm employers that are reduced to $30 million after appeals. There were two recent agricultural penalties over $100,000: Alco Harvesting in 2021 and California Terra Garden in 2023. 

Cal/OSHA sets workplace safety standards that require employers to anticipate and deal with issues before they lead to injuries and to report any injuries that occur. Cal/OSHA heat standards for outdoor workers require employers to have Heat Illness Prevention Programs and to take precautions when temperatures are above 80F and more precautions at 95F or more. Farm employers must also have protocols to deal with wildfire smoke and H5N1 bird flu on farms with animals.

Employers complain that state health and safety laws and regulations do not account for the unique features of farm work, while worker advocates say that the immigrant and vulnerable farm workforce is afraid to complain about unsafe conditions. There is general agreement that the key players are the supervisors who manage crews of 10 to 60 workers: do they know their employers’ safety plans and comply or ignore safety plans to get work done quickly? 

Hotter days, smoke, and other factors are associated with more farm worker injuries, many of which are not reported. Cell phone data suggest that farm workers start the workday earlier and work fewer hours on hot days, and that fewer workers work on smoky days.

ALRA at 50

The Agricultural Labor Relations Act, which mirrors the National Labor Relations Act that governs workers, unions, and employers in most of the private sector of the nonfarm economy, was enacted in 1975 to bring peace to the fields and justice to farm workers. The ALRA has several notable differences:

• Quick elections (generally within 7 days of a union request) so that migrants can vote before seasonal jobs on a farm end
• A makewhole remedy for bad-faith employer bargaining (the employer pays lost wages and benefits to affected employees if the employer’s failure to bargain in good faith led to losses of wages and benefits)
• More authority for unions to regulate their internal affairs (unions can require workers on a farm to be in good standing with the union, and the union can define good standing)

The ALRA was amended twice: mandatory mediation and conciliation (MMC) was added in 2002 and card check or majority support petitions were made an alternative to secret ballot elections in 2022.

What is the 50-year legacy of the ALRA? Several results are clear: 

• battles between farm worker unions and union-employer conflicts have moved out of the streets and into administrative hearings and courts
• the farm labor market is far more regulated in 2025 than it was in 1975. California farm workers have the same protections under most labor laws as nonfarm workers, and extra protections against heat, smoke, and sexual harassment
• 10,000 of the 800,000+ California farm workers are represented by unions, whose leaders are often more active in federal and state governments than in fields
• NGO worker centers may help non-union workers to deal with work- and non-work-related issues more often than unions

Agriculture and Farm Workers, 1975-2025

California farm sales in real or inflation-adjusted terms peaked in 2012, and are about $60 billion today. US agriculture is a 50-50 industry, meaning that half of US farm sales are from crop commodities and half are from animal commodities. California is a crop-dominant state, with 70 percent of the state’s farm sales from crop commodities.

California exported $22 billion of farm commodities in 2023, about 40 percent of the state’s farm sales, led by almonds and pistachios that were 30 percent of California farm exports. In 1995, by contrast, almonds and cotton were almost 30 percent of farm exports.

The major changes in California agriculture and farm workers over the past half century include:

• A shift from field crops such as cotton to fruits such as strawberries that led to a doubling of average wage and salary employment from 200,000+ to 400,000+ (the number of unique farm workers is about twice average employment)
• A change from mostly US-born to mostly Mexican-born farm workers; half of the Mexican-born workers in California are not authorized to work in the US
• A shift from farm operators hiring seasonal workers directly to relying on FLCs and other nonfarm employers to bring workers to the farm to perform seasonal tasks 

Labor is a major expense for many producers of fresh fruits and vegetables, accounting for half or more of production expenses in berries. QCEW or UI data show that California crop farmers paid $16 billion in wages in 2023: $7 billion in wages to directly hired workers (including managers) and $9 billion paid by crop support firms including FLCs.

California agriculture has a revolving door seasonal labor market that relies on newcomers from abroad to fill seasonal jobs; these workers eventually exit the seasonal farm workforce by finding nonfarm jobs. Their US-educated children shun seasonal farm jobs. There are few unauthorized newcomers from abroad, putting upward pressure on farm wages and prompting the MMI responses of mechanization, migrant H-2A workers, and imports.

Almost 900,000 unique workers filled the average 410,000 agricultural jobs in 2023, an average 2.2 workers per job. A third of these farm workers were in three counties: Kern, Monterey, and Fresno, and 70 percent were in 10 counties: the top three plus Tulare, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Ventura, San Joaquin, Madera, and Merced.

Almost 500,000 workers had only one (agricultural) job in 2023, 200,000 had two California jobs, either two farm jobs or one farm and one nonfarm job, and 200,000 had three or more jobs. Tabulations of earnings from each California job found that 765,000 or 85 percent of all workers with at least one agricultural job in 2023 had their highest earning job with an agricultural employer. 

These primary farm workers (meaning that the worker’s highest earning job was with a farm employer) included:

• 220,000 primary farm workers who were hired directly by crop farm operators in 2023, including almost 60 percent hired by fruit and nut farmers. Average direct-hire crop employment was 154,000 in 2023, making the ratio of primary crop farm workers to jobs 1.4
• 33,000 primary farm workers who were hired directly by animal farm operators, including two-thirds who were hired by dairy farmers. Average direct-hire animal employment was 28,000 in 2023, making the ratio of primary crop farm workers to jobs 1.2
• 500,000 primary farm workers who were hired by crop support firms, including 80 percent who were hired by FLCs. Average direct-hire crop support employment was 220,000 in 2023, making the ratio of primary crop farm workers to jobs 2.3

Average earnings rise as the ratio of workers to jobs declines:

• Primary crop workers earned an average $28,000 in 2023
• Primary animal workers earned an average $43,000 in 2023
• Primary crop support workers earned an average $15,000 in 2023

ALRA and ALRB, 1975-2025

At the peak of union activity in the late 1970s, there were 250 contracts between unions and California farm employers. The high-water mark was in 1980, when the general labor wage in the UFW-Sun Harvest (Chiquita) contract was 75 percent higher than the state’s minimum wage, equivalent to $29 in 2025. 

Union contracts today have a general labor wage that is less than 10 percent higher than the minimum wage of $16.50. However, most farm worker union contracts include health insurance, pensions, and paid vacations and holidays. Many large non-union employers also provide these benefits, often with cost sharing that limits worker participation.

California has tried to strengthen farm worker unions with mandatory mediation and conciliation, card check, and employer neutrality in cannabis. These interventions have not led to an upsurge in union activity. Some unions say that they will be unable to organize workers until unauthorized workers are legalized and feel empowered to vote for union representation. Farm employers say that wages and working conditions have improved and that their employees see little value in union representation.

Several perennial ALRA issues persist, including:

• Elections or how to determine if workers want to be represented by a union. Cesar Chavez insisted on secret-ballot elections so that employers could not make sweetheart deals with their preferred unions. However, since there is little competition between unions, the UFW championed the addition of card check, which allows the UFW to be certified as the representative of workers on a farm if at least half of the workers sign union authorization cards. Employers oppose card check, arguing that unions can trick or pressure workers to sign cards and that unions make it hard for their employees to change their mind and withdraw their union-support signatures. There have been five card-check certifications since 2023, including three that led to 1,700 workers under UFW contracts.
• Makewhole and MMC have failed to generate first contracts soon after a union is certified to represent workers on a farm. Instead, MMC has most often been invoked in “old certifications.” For example, a union certified before 2000 for an employer that committed an unfair labor practice can return decades later and request data to bargain for a new contract. Some employers refuse to provide data and bargain, saying that the workers who voted for the union are no longer employed on the farm. The ALRB has a certified-until-decertified policy, which means that the ALRB can order an employer to implement a MMC contract if the employer refuses to bargain. MMC contracts typically include wage increases and few benefits under the theory that benefits can be negotiated in subsequent contracts. However, few MMC contracts are re-negotiated; MMC was invoked in two of the five card check elections.
• The best-known union is the UFW, which operates health and pension plans for 5,000 beneficiaries. California subsidizes the UFW RFK health plan.

Over the past decade, the ALRB arranged for almost $6 million to be paid to workers who lost wages and benefits and ordered almost 400 workers to be reinstated to their jobs (California’s 17,000 farm employers paid $18 billion in wages in 2023). The ALRB educates farm workers about their rights under the ALRA, often collaborating with NGOs to reach workers. 

The ALRB in 2025 is focused on:

• Outreach. The 2024-25 state budget provided $16 million to the ALRB, DIR, and the Labor and Workforce Development Agency to improve services to farm workers by developing one-stop shops for workers to meet with agency representatives to obtain information and to file claims. Staff are trained to refer workers to the appropriate agency.
• Card check. The ALRB issued its first decisions related to majority-support petitions or card check certifications, and the novel legal issues raised are being litigated in state and federal court.
• Cannabis. There have been three representation elections in cannabis, where employers must be neutral, since 2016. 

Current and past ALRB leaders acknowledge the difficulties of regulating one industry in one state, which means that the agency is often accused of bias by the losing side in ALRB decisions. Many ALRB decisions are appealed to California courts.

Governor Brown highlighted the chaos surrounding farm labor before enactment of the ALRA in 1975, as the UFW, Teamsters, and employers battled each other in the fields and streets. Cesar Chavez was a charismatic leader who inspired both farm workers and consumers to support La Causa, the table grape boycott of the late 1960s that led to UFW contracts. 

Brown brought together parties with very different priorities in 1975 to compromise and support the ALRA. The first ALRB-supervised elections in 1975-76 showed that most farm workers wanted UFW representation, but a combination of UFW overreach with Proposition 14 in 1976, which would have guaranteed funding for the ALRB in the state constitution, internal UFW changes in the early 1980s that drove experienced organizers and lawyers away, and rising unauthorized migration and FLCs led to the shrinking of the UFW’s influence over farm worker wages and benefits.

NGO Certification

NGO certification programs are alternatives to collective bargaining agreements that are spreading in agriculture, including the Fair Food Program (FFP) in Florida, the Equitable Food Initiative (EFI) in California and other states, and FairtradeUSA. These programs create worker-supervisor teams to ensure that workers know their rights and that supervisors know about worker concerns and issues.

The key parameters of certification programs are

• the standards and audits to ensure compliance
• the value of the certification to the grower, such as higher prices from or preferred access to buyers
• the effects of certification on workers and the farm, such as reducing worker turnover and increasing farm profits 

NGO standards usually call for compliance with all applicable labor laws and sometimes go beyond them by requiring the creation of worker-supervisor teams that meet regularly. Most programs allow employers to correct any deficiencies identified by worker complaints or audits before growers lose certification.

The Ethical Charter Implementation Program helps farm employers to strengthen their labor management systems and ensures that buyers know which producers have systems to comply with labor laws. The ECIP is a computer-based system that spells our good labor practices in a learn-assess-benchmark process. As of April 2025, over 1,000 produce growers and almost 300 suppliers subscribed to the ECIP, about half of those who were invited to subscribe. 

ECIP ranks growers and suppliers by their “engagement” with good labor practices on a dashboard available to buyers so that buyers can favor highly-engaged suppliers. ECIP’s goal is to use buyer behavior (market forces) to encourage farm employers to improve their labor practices. ECIP plans to survey workers on participating farms to determine the effects of the ECIP on worker productivity, turnover, and other factors that affect farm profitability.

There are new initiatives to ensure the lawful recruitment of H-2A migrants in sending countries. The US requires employers to pay all migrant worker costs, meaning that employers should pay for recruitment, internal travel, visas, and other costs associated with becoming an H-2A worker in countries of origin where bribes may be common. This makes it difficult to regulate worker-paid costs in countries where obtaining an H-2A visa can be perceived as winning the lottery and sharing with friends and relatives. Several US-based recruiters including CIERTO are trying to “do recruitment right.”

Fairtrade may be the best-known global effort that relies on consumer awareness to drive changes for farmers and farm workers. FairtradeUSA audits farm employers to ensure adherence to six modules of compliance, from fundamental rights at work to traceability and transparency. FairtradeUSA aims to make its certification valuable to California producers.

Women Farm Workers

The NAWS reports that women are 25 to 35 percent of US and California crop workers; women were a quarter of California farm workers in the mid-1960s. The NAWS excludes H-2A workers, almost all of whom are men (as were almost all Braceros between 1942 and 1964).

The NAWS finds that the share of women is highest in horticulture or greenhouses and nurseries, and lowest in field crops. Women in the NAWS are more likely to be legal, younger than men, and less likely to be employed by a FLC. Women farm workers earn lower wages, have fewer years of experience with their current employer, and work fewer hours a week than men.

Women face many of the same work-related issues as men, including seasonal work, relatively low wages, and few opportunities to climb the agricultural job ladder. California enacted AB 1825 in 2005, which requires employers with five or more employees to provide their employees with training every two years to prevent sexual harassment (supervisors must have two hours of sexual harassment training every year). FLCs must provide sexual harassment training regardless of their number of employees. 

Surveys of farm workers find that many women are sexually harassed but do not complain because they need their jobs. Many farm workers are from countries that do not have or enforce laws against sexual harassment in the workplace, so that California employers must tackle norms that are imported with their workers, a process that takes time and effort. In the case of Mexico, discrimination against indigenous Mexicans can be imported by non-indigenous Mexican-born supervisors and workers in California.

Sheep and Goat Herders

California has a small sheep and goat industry that relies on H-2A herders from Peru and Mexico. AB 1066 required farm workers to be paid overtime wages on an 8/40 basis, which sharply increased range herder wages from about $2,000 a month in 2018 to $5,000 a month in 2025, which is far more than the $2,000 a month paid in other states.

SB 143 mandates a study of herder wages and working conditions, including interviews with ranchers and herders. Ranchers are unanimous that the sharp increase in herder wages adversely affects an industry that is finding new roles in targeted grazing, using animals to eat grasses and brush that could fuel wildfires in the urban-wilderness interface. Labor costs are a third of the cost of producing lambs for meat and can be higher in targeted grazing because the number of animals per herder is often limited and fencing, water, and other items are needed.

H-2A range herders are provided with trailers to live in while they care for animals. California has a robust system to ensure that these trailers satisfy minimum standards, including EDD inspectors who check each trailer before herders arrive and affix labels to expedite re-checks after herders are living in them. Advocates question whether the minimum trailer standards are high enough, whether EDD does enough to recheck trailers when herders in remote areas. Advocates want the state to allow herders to have visitors in their trailers.

Ranchers often describe their 3 to 15 H-2A herders as “like family,” while advocates say that herders often arrive in debt and are vulnerable because they are dependent on employers for housing and food. It is very difficult to reconcile these opposing views. Herder interviews in 2025 suggest that many herders live in trailers near towns or cities, and that some herders have employer-provided vehicles. Surveys did not find herders who purchased their own vehicles, even though most are in California for three years, a contrast to some H-2A workers in the US for less than a year who purchase vehicles that are stored until they return.

What can California do to protect herders and ensure the viability of the sheep and goat industry? The sharp jump in the California 24/7 herder wage reflects the state’s decision to require pay for all on-duty hours or 168 hours a week. Interviews with herders suggest that typical workdays are from 7am to 6pm, with ending times earlier in winter. Herders have paid breaks and unpaid lunch time of an hour or two, so that workweeks average 50 hours in winter and 60 in summer. 

AB 801 would exempt 24/7 herders from AB 1066 overtime wage requirements and SB 628 would refund some of the overtime wages that farm employers pay to their employees. H-2A regulations require employers to provide free housing and food to 24/7 herders. California could adapt live-in caregiver regulations, which allow employers to deduct up to $1,100 a month for housing and food, and allow ranchers to deduct a similar amount from herder overtime wages. If the live-in caregiver model were applied to sheep and goat herders, monthly labor costs would fall from $5,300 a month (wages and food) to $4,200 a month.

Another option would be to allow herders who are provided with modern trailers that satisfy permanent housing regulations (indoor plumbing, cooking facilities, refrigerator, hot and cold water) to be paid the AEWR hourly wage of $20 for the hours they actually work. If herders average 40-hour weeks, their weekly wages are $800 and, for 4.33 weeks, about $3,500 a month. 

Since hourly wage H-2A workers must pay for food, the cost of herders under a modern-trailer-and-hourly wage system would drop from $5,300 to $3,500 a month. There are trade offs: (1) herders get modern trailers but have lower monthly wages, while (2) ranchers have higher up-front costs for trailers but lower monthly labor costs.

Other potential win-win options include (1) subsidizing tech such as drones to allow fewer herders to monitor sheep with their phones and (2) subsidizing insurance for targeted grazing operations that have animals near urban areas.

Thanks and 2026

Some 35 researchers who analyze data interacted with government agencies that generate data and shape and implement farm labor policies on May 21 and May 23. Over 150 participants considered the effects of the ALRA on May 22 that featured an address by Governor Jerry Brown, who signed the ALRA into law June 4, 1975.

We are grateful for the support of the ALRB, USDA’s ERS and OCE, the California Wellness, Giannini, Rosenberg, and Walmart Foundations, and the UCD Gifford Center and WACHS. 

We hope to hold a farm labor conference in spring 2026 that will likely focus on Trump Administration migration policies and farm labor. Will deportations reduce the number of US farm workers? Will any labor supply gaps be filled by H-2A or other guest workers or mechanization or imports? How will federal and state technology, migration, and trade policies interact to shape the future of agriculture and farm workers? For more information: plmartin@ucdavis.edu

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