UFW pushes for farms to honor union contracts

After securing the first contract in New York earlier this year, United Farm Workers—the nation’s largest agricultural workers’ union—has been steadfast in unionization efforts for eight farms across the state. However, half of them, including Wayne County’s Wafler Farms, have not honored union contracts imposed through arbitration. 

Farm workers and union organizers have called on Wafler Farms to implement a contract that would increase wages and provide job security for dozens of workers. Walfer Farms, located in Wolcott, has been run by the Wafler family since its founding in 1960. It is currently led by Paul and Susan Wafler. 

The union’s bargaining unit, with over 110 members, represents a group of temporary agricultural workers in the U.S. under H-2A visas. To be eligible under the H-2A program, employers must:

■ offer a seasonal or temporary job;

■ demonstrate a lack of U.S. workers able, willing, qualified, and available to do such work; and

■ ensure that H-2A workers do not adversely affect the wages and working conditions of similarly employed U.S. workers.

Most workers at Wafler Farms are from Jamaica and have been working on the farm for an average of six years, with the longest tenured worker being there for 12, says Christopher Walters, a 31-year-old farm worker. Many of them, including Walters, have families back home.

With over 600 acres of apple trees to tend, farm workers at Wafler say they spend 11-hour days on the farm, clocking in at 7 a.m. each day. Saturdays are half-days, while Sundays are the only full day of rest. New York’s pay rate for guest workers, referred to as the adverse effect wage rate, is $18.83 as of December 2024.

Workers typically fill six or seven trailers of apples per day, but often exceed 12 without receiving additional compensation. A large machine follows workers on the fields, setting their pace while collecting bins of apples.

“We are not asking for luxuries. This is extremely hard labor that we are doing, but we don’t mind,” says worker Mario Ming, who spoke at a press conference last month calling on Wafler Farms to honor the union contract. “Even though we might hear the phrase that ‘migrant workers are taking our jobs,’ these are the jobs that no Americans want to do.”

The effects of pesticides and the grueling nature of day-to-day work have left several workers hospitalized, they say. Walters claims the safety of farm workers has never been adequately addressed at Wafler Farms.

“(The owner) always says that you can get 100 guys for one guy,” Walter says. “It’s just stock (to him).”

Once farm workers leave for the season, their return is contingent on whether Wafler Farms renews their contract. The fear of being unable to return to the U.S. has created an environment of silence among workers. Retaliation could result in the loss of income. Sick leave also means a day without pay.

“Imagine your mom or dad working for over 25 years at a company, only to be discarded at the end with no pension,” Ming says. “Imagine harvesting fruits that feed America, yet being told that we don’t deserve the protections that are already written in law. This is our reality.”

Wafler Farms and its legal representative did not respond to a request for comment.

Under federal labor law, agricultural workers do not have the right to unionize, but in New York, passage of the 2019 Farm Laborers Fair Practices Act, granting farm workers overtime pay, one day of rest each week, and other labor protections. Farm workers—including those on H-2A visas—now possess the right to unionize and bargain collectively.

After Wafler’s H-2A workers voted for UFW representation in 2022, their certification was met with opposition from the farm, which argued that because foreign workers were governed under federal immigration law, state law could not grant them rights that federal law did not. That argument was rejected by the state’s Public Employment Relations Board, and the union was certified to represent the farm’s H-2A workers in May 2023.

In October 2023, a coalition of New York farms, including the New York State Vegetable Growers Association, filed a federal lawsuit to overturn the FLFLPA, seeking a temporary restraining order on the use of the act until the lawsuit was heard. In response, the PERB agreed to not issue any orders regarding FLFLPA matters, constraining UFW’s efforts to negotiate with farms across New York. That pause was lifted in March 2024, with arbitration imposed later that year.

The UFW’s collective bargaining agreement, awarded by a PERB arbitrator in February and lasting until April 2027, has not been honored by Wafler Farms to date. With UFW filing an Unfair Labor Practice charge in May, organizers and workers alike have continued to urge the farm to abide by its union contract immediately. With just weeks left in this year’s apple-picking season, workers may leave the U.S. without any resolution.

“Every day that goes by without Wafler Farms honoring the collective bargaining agreement reached under the terms of New York State law is a great injustice for the workers at Wafler, without whom the company could not exist,” says UFW secretary-treasurer Armando Elenes. 

“Refusing to honor this union contract is denying workers of the higher wages set by this contract. It is denying workers of the grievance process, safer working conditions, and seniority rights set by this contract. It is denying workers of their right to a union, as provided by New York state law. It is illegal and wrong—and we will hold Wafler’s management and ownership accountable.”

“The effort and strength that we (are) shoving and pushing out there for Americans to be able to eat apples, it isn’t easy,” says Walters. “Picking the apples for (the) American people, I find (a) joy to do that. I don’t have a problem with that. It’s just the treatment that we are facing here is an issue. We (are) being mistreated.”

Narm Nathan is a Rochester Beacon contributing writer and a member of the Oasis Project’s inaugural cohort.

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