MIGRANT AND SEASONAL AGRICULTURAL
Adapted from "A Summary of Federal Laws and Regulations Affecting
Agricultural Employers, 1992," by Jack L. Runyan, U.S. Department of
Agriculture, Economic Research Service, Agriculture Information Bulletin
The Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act (MSPA),
passed in 1983, was designed to provide migrant and seasonal farmworkers
with protections concerning pay, working conditions, and work-related
conditions, to require farm labor contractors to register with the U.S.
Department of Labor, and to assure necessary protections for farmworkers,
agricultural associations, and agricultural employers.
The MSPA is the major Federal law that deals exclusively with
agricultural employment. It was enacted to protect migrant and seasonal
farmworkers on matters of pay and working and work-related conditions, to
require farm labor contractors to register with the U.S. Department of
Labor, and to assure necessary protections for farmworkers, agricultural
associations, and agricultural employers.
The major requirements of MSPA are:
- farm labor contractors and each of their employees who will be
performing farm labor contractor activities must obtain a certificate of
registration from the U.S. Department of Labor before they can start
farm labor contractor activities,
- farm labor contractors, agricultural employers, and agricultural
associations must disclose to migrant and seasonal agricultural workers
information about wages, hours, and other working conditions, and about
housing when provided,
- workers must be provided with written statements of earnings and
- if transportation is provided, vehicles used must be safe and
properly insured, and
- if housing is provided, it must meet safety and health standards.
The law requires people who use the services of a farm labor contractor
to take reasonable steps to determine that the contractor has a valid
certificate of registration. This information can be verified by calling
the U.S. Department of Labor's toll-free number (1-800-800-0235). The law
designates criminal and civil penalties and administrative sanctions
against anyone who violates it.
The law contains several major requirements for agricultural employers.
- First, farm labor contractors and each of their employees who will
be performing farm labor contractor activities must obtain a certificate
of registration from the U.S. Department of Labor before they can start
farm labor contractor activities.
- Farm labor contractors who furnish worker transportation and housing
- Furnish proof to the U.S. Department of Labor that their
transportation vehicles meet safety requirements,
- Furnish proof to the U.S. Department of Labor that their
transportation vehicles are insured for the amounts specified in the
statute and regulations, and
- Identify the housing that will be used and show that it meets
State and Federal safety and health standards and is approved for
- Second, farm labor contractors, agricultural employers, and
agricultural associations must provide written information to their
workers on wages, hours, other working conditions, and housing when they
- Third, farm labor contractors, agricultural employers, and
agricultural associations must make and preserve written payroll
records. They must also provide each employee with a written statement
of earnings, deductions (plus reasons for deductions), and net pay.
Fulfilling the Requirements of Conditions of Employment
A major requirement of employers and contractors under the MSPA is to
provide workers with a statement of the conditions of their employment.
This law requires that each farm labor contractor, agricultural employer,
and agricultural association that recruits any migrant or day-haul workers
must provide the following information in writing to each worker:
- Place of employment,
- Wage rates to be paid,
- Crops and kinds of activities in which the worker is to be employed,
- Period of employment
- Transportation, housing, and any other employee benefits to be
provided and any costs to be charged to workers,
- Existence of any strike, work stoppage, slowdown or interruption of
operations by employees at the place of employment and
- Whether anyone is paid a commission for items that may be sold to
workers while they are employed.
This same information must be provided in writing to any seasonal
workers, but only if they request it. The information must be provided in
the language common to the farmworker if they are not fluent in English as
necessary and reasonable.
Each farm labor contractor, agricultural employer, and agricultural
association that employs any migrant or seasonal worker (including each
day-haul worker) must make the following records for each employee and
preserve them for 3 years:
- Basis on which wages are paid,
- Number of piecework units earned, if paid on a piecework basis,
- Number of hours worked,
- Total earnings,
- Specific sums withheld and the purpose of each sum withheld, and
- Net pay.
Workers must be paid every 2 weeks or twice a month. Each employee must
be provided with an itemized written statement of the information listed
above for each pay period. The information furnished to employees must be
in a language common to workers.
Farm labor contractors must also furnish wage records to each
agricultural employer and agricultural association for which the
contractor provides workers. The agricultural employers and agricultural
associations who receive these records are required to keep them for 3
years from the end of the employment period.
The following definitions are limited to key terms to show the law's
range of coverage. Readers seeking more detailed information should
contact the nearest office of the Wage and Hour Division, U.S. Department
of Labor, and consult 29 Code of Federal Regulations and 29
United States Code.
A farm labor contractor is a person (other than an
agricultural employer, an agricultural association, or an employee of an
agricultural employer or agricultural association) who receives a fee for
performing farm labor contracting activities.
A farm labor contracting activity is the "recruiting,
soliciting, hiring, employing, furnishing, or transporting of any migrant
or seasonal agricultural worker."
A migrant agricultural worker is a person employed in
agricultural work of a seasonal or other temporary nature who is required
to be absent overnight from his or her permanent place of residence.
Exceptions are immediate family members of an agricultural employer or a
farm labor contractor, and temporary H-2A foreign workers. (H-2A temporary
foreign workers are nonimmigrant aliens authorized to work in agricultural
employment in the United States for a specified time period, normally less
than 1 year.)
A seasonal agricultural worker is a person employed in
agricultural work of a seasonal or other temporary nature who is not
required to be absent overnight from his or her permanent place of
residence. Such a worker is covered by MSPA when the worker is performing
field work, or when the worker is employed in a packing or processing
operation and is transported by day haul. The same exceptions listed above
for migrant agricultural workers apply here.
A day-haul operation is "the assembly of workers at a
pick-up point waiting to be hired and employed, transportation of such
workers to agricultural employment, and the return of such workers to a
drop-off point on the same day."
Agricultural employment is any service or activity
defined as agricultural employment in the Fair Labor Standards Act and in
the Internal Revenue Code of 1954. In addition, the handling, planting,
drying, packing, packaging, processing, freezing, or grading prior to
delivery for storage of any agricultural or horticultural commodity in its
unmanufactured state are also considered agricultural employment.
Field work is work related to planting, cultivating,
or harvesting operations (which occurs in the field rather than in a
processing plant or packing shed).
Field workers include workers in nursery and
mushroom-growing operations and similar workers who plant, cultivate,
An agricultural employer is "a person who owns or
operates a farm, ranch, processing establishment, cannery, gin, packing
shed or nursery, or who produces or conditions seed, and who either
recruits, solicits, hires, employs, furnishes, or transports any migrant
or seasonal agricultural worker."
An agricultural association is a "nonprofit or
cooperative association of farmers, growers, or ranchers incorporated or
qualified under applicable State laws which recruits, solicits, hires,
employs, furnishes, or transports any migrant or seasonal agricultural
The immediate family of an employer includes "a
spouse, children, stepchildren and foster children; parents, stepparents,
and foster parents; and brothers and sisters."
An illegal alien is "a person who has entered the
United States without legal documentation or who cannot legally accept
employment in the United states."
Violations of MSPA carry criminal and civil penalties and
administrative sanctions. MSPA also permits people to bring legal action
against alleged violators. The agency responsible for enforcing MSPA is
the Wage and Hour Division of the U.S. Department of Labor.
Under the criminal sanctions, anyone knowingly and willfully violating
MSPA or its regulations may be fined not more than $1,000 or sentenced to
prison for not more than 1 year, or both, for first violations. Subsequent
violations carry a fine of not more than $10,000 or a prison sentence of
not more than 3 years, or both. An unregistered farm labor contractor who
employs an illegal alien may be fined not more than $10,000 or sentenced
to prison for not more than 3 years, or both.
Under civil sanctions, any person who commits a violation of MSPA or
any regulations under it may be assessed a civil money penalty of not more
than $1,000 for each violation.
Under administrative sanctions, farm labor contractors who violate MSPA
or any of its regulations may be subject to having their current
certificate revoked and/or future applications for certificates denied.
Private Right of Action
A unique feature of MSPA is that it permits anyone aggrieved by a
violation of any provision by a farm labor contractor, agricultural
employer, agricultural association, or other person to file suit in any
Federal District Court having jurisdiction over the parties. The suits may
be filed regardless of the amount in controversy, regardless of the
citizenship of the parties, and regardless of whether all administrative
remedies the act provides have been exhausted. The court may appoint an
attorney for the complainant. Finally, the court may award up to $500 per
plaintiff per violation, or other equitable relief when violations are
Farm labor contractor registration. Farm labor contractors and
each of their employees who will perform farm labor contractor activities
must obtain a certificate of registration from the U.S. Department of
Labor before they can start farm labor contractor activities. Those exempt
from the registration requirement include:
- Agricultural employers and associations or their employees.
- Farm labor contractors who work within a 25-mile intrastate radius
of their permanent residence for less than 13 weeks per year.
- Custom combine, hay harvesting, or sheep shearing operations.
- Seed production operations.
- Custom poultry operations.
- Common carriers.
- Labor organizations.
- Nonprofit charitable or educational institutions.
- Persons hiring or recruiting students or other nonagricultural
employees for employment in seed production or in stringing and
harvesting shade-grown tobacco.
Migrant and seasonal agricultural workers protection. Farm
labor contractors, agricultural employers, and agricultural associations
must provide migrant and seasonal agricultural workers with information on
wages, hours, and other working conditions. In the case of housing,
housing providers must provide migrant and seasonal agricultural workers
with information on housing. Those exempt from these provisions include:
- All those listed above except number 1, --agricultural employers and
associations or their employees.
- Individuals or immediate family members who engage in farm labor
contracting activities on behalf of their exclusively owned or operated
- Any person (for example, a farm operator), except a farm labor
contractor, who qualifies for the 500-man-days exemption under the Fair
Labor Standards Act.
NOTE: Several States have farm labor contractor registration
laws whose coverage and provisions may be different from the Federal law.