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This section focuses on legislation moving through Congress. It mentions legislation such as Providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Labor relating to the Adverse Effect Wage Rate Methodology., committees such as Committee on the Judiciary, members such as Alejandro Padilla.
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March 26, 2026
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Download official Senate Record PDFReturn to issue contextBy Mr. PADILLA:
S.J. Res. 152. A joint resolution providing for congressional disapproval under chapter 8 of title 5, United States Code, of the rule submitted by the Department of Labor relating to the Adverse Effect Wage Rate Methodology; to the Committee on the Judiciary.
Mr. PADILLA. Mr. President, I rise today in support of the Congressional Review Act resolution to overturn the Department of Labor's recent rule that cuts wages for farmworkers across this country.
are used to grocery stores stocked with fresh food. But far too little thought gets paid to where that food comes from or to the millions of farmworkers whose grueling labor gets it there.
the fields to feed this Nation. Through heat waves, storms, wildfire smoke—even pandemics—they show up so we can eat. These are some of the hardest jobs in America. Trust me, I know from experience.
the fields for a day—cutting parsley and radishes alongside them in Southern California. many of the workers I met were older than me and had done this work for decades. Together, we spent hours on our hands and knees filling crates with produce. And let me tell you—I couldn't keep up. I was a whole lot slower than the highly skilled farmworkers who helped me out that day.
comes from, farmworkers bring extraordinary skill, discipline, and pride to their work. They deserve our gratitude, they deserve our respect, and they deserve to be paid fairly, because if they miss a day, there is no safety net for them to fall back on.
rule decided to go ahead and attack them anyway. They decided to go ahead and slash farmworker wages by as much as $5 to $7 an hour. By the Labor Department's own estimate, this rule would transfer more than $2 billion out of workers' pockets and into employers' hands every year, and it does so in a way that undercuts both U.S. farmworkers and the very purpose of the H-2A Program, which is supposed to protect, not depress, domestic wages.
This is not a technical adjustment. It is one of the largest wealth transfers from workers to employers in the history of American agriculture, and the consequences are both very real and immediate. In California, farmworker wages could drop from nearly $20 an hour to under $17. In Michigan, it could go from over $18 to under $14, and from $16 to under $11 an hour in Georgia.
Let's be clear: Farmworkers are not asking for special treatment; they are asking for fair pay for hard work. Instead, this rule rigs the system against them. It incentivizes hiring lower-paid guestworkers while making it easier to displace U.S. workers. All that does is accelerate a race to the bottom in agricultural labor standards.
issued without providing a meaningful opportunity for public comment, without good cause. That is not a minor procedural error or technicality; that is a clear violation of the Administrative Procedure Act. It is a fundamental breach of the law governing how Agencies make decisions in a democracy that significantly impact the public.
transparency, accountability, and public participation. Farmworkers, advocates, employers, and communities deserved to have a voice in a rule that so directly affects their livelihoods. Instead, the Department rushed it through as an interim final rule, cutting wages first and asking questions later.
exists—so that Congress can step in when an agency overreaches, when it ignores the law and harms the very people it's supposed to protect.
and restoring the rule of law. I urge all of my colleagues to support this resolution by standing with the farmworkers who put food on our tables, not the powerful interests looking to cut their wages.