(WAYNE COUNTY, NEW YORK) - Despite an arbitrator’s sanction of a Collective Bargaining Agreement covering Workers employed at an Upstate Apple Farm, the company has refused to institute its provisions. 

The deadlock led Workers at Wafler Farms in Wayne County to publicize their frustrations at having to work according to the company’s terms rather than those outlined in the contract. 

“Imagine harvesting fruits that feed America yet being told that we don’t deserve the protections that are already written in law,” Mario Ming said at a press event as his Co-Workers waved and snapped the red and black banners of the United Farm Workers of America, which has represented the Workers since 2022. “We are the Workers that prune the trees, tend to the orchards and harvest the apples. Without us, there's no Wafler Farm. Yet still, we are treated as disposable tools.”

The Workers, most if not all of them Jamaican, come to the U.S. to work under what is called the H-2A Program, which allows employers to hire foreign nationals for seasonal agricultural work if the farms have been unable to find U.S. citizens. 

According to a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services database, 66 Workers were approved to work at Wafler Farms in Fiscal Year 2025.

Wafler was among 321 employers in New York State eligible to participate in the program. 

“This is extremely hard labor that we are doing, but we don't mind. Even though, even now and again, we might hear the phrase that ‘Migrant Workers are taking our jobs,’” Ming said. “No. These are the jobs that no Americans want to do.”

The February decision by the arbitrator, Saratoga attorney Eric Larson, to sanction a two-year contract grew out of a January 29th hearing at which the Union presented its case but at which the company declined to participate. 

According to the agreement’s terms, most Workers would be paid $19.48 an hour, with Workers operating machinery getting 25 cents more.

The H-2A Workers are currently earning $18.83 an hour, what’s called the adverse effect wage rate - a minimum hourly wage set by the U.S. Department of Labor that H-2A Visa Program employers must pay. 

The contract also includes provisions regarding seniority and seasonal recall rights, paid holidays, paid bereavement leave, paid vacation time and the opportunity to participate in a pension plan, among other benefits, a Union Representative said. 

But since the company is not abiding by the contract, the Workers are not benefiting from any of those provisions - for now.

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