Wage Equity Act of 2001

Wage Equity Act of 2001 - Amends the Immigration and Nationality Act to include among the conditions of approval of an H-2A (visa) temporary agricultural worker petition the requirement that an employer may not be required to pay workers more than the greater of: (1) the prevailing wage for seasonal agricultural workers in the occupation in the area of intended employment; or (2) the greater of Federal or State minimum wage.

[Congressional Bills 107th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 2457 Introduced in House (IH)]







107th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 2457

To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to impose a limitation on 
the wage that the Secretary of Labor may require an employer to pay an 
         alien who is an H-2A nonimmigrant agricultural worker.


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                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                             July 11, 2001

Mr. Cannon (for himself, Mr. Bishop, Mr. Whitfield, Mr. Radanovich, Mr. 
    Lewis of Kentucky, Mr. Hutchinson, Mr. Goode, Mr. Shimkus, Mr. 
Pickering, Mr. McHugh, Mr. Saxton, Mr. Jenkins, Mr. Green of Wisconsin, 
    Mr. Shows, Mr. Keller, Mr. Putnam, Mr. Graham, and Mr. Sweeney) 
 introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on 
                             the Judiciary

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
To amend the Immigration and Nationality Act to impose a limitation on 
the wage that the Secretary of Labor may require an employer to pay an 
         alien who is an H-2A nonimmigrant agricultural worker.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Wage Equity Act of 2001''.

SEC. 2. LIMITATION ON H-2A NONIMMIGRANT WAGE REQUIREMENT.

    (a) Conditions for Approval of H-2A Petitions.--Section 218(a) of 
the Immigration and Nationality Act (8 U.S.C. 1188(a)) is amended by 
redesignating paragraph (2) as paragraph (3) and by inserting after 
paragraph (1) the following new paragraph:
    ``(2)(A) In making the certification described in paragraph (1), 
the Secretary of Labor may not require an employer to pay workers more 
than the greater of--
            ``(i) the prevailing wage for seasonal agricultural workers 
        in the occupation in the area of intended employment, or
            ``(ii) the greater of the hourly wage described in section 
        6(a)(1) of the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (29 U.S.C. 
        206(a)(1)), or the applicable State minimum wage.
    ``(B) In complying with subparagraph (A)(i), an employer (or the 
employer's agent) may request and obtain a prevailing wage 
determination from the State employment security agency. An employer 
who obtains such a determination and pays the wage determined to be 
prevailing shall be considered to have met the requirement of 
subparagraph (A)(i).
    ``(C) In lieu of the procedure described in subparagraph (B), an 
employer may rely on other wage information, including a survey of the 
prevailing wages of workers in the occupation in the area of intended 
employment that has been conducted or funded by the employer or a group 
of employers, that meets criteria specified by the Secretary of Labor 
in regulations.
    ``(D) If the prevailing wage described in subparagraph (A)(i) is an 
hourly wage, the employer may pay workers in the occupation by an 
incentive method of pay such as a piece rate, task rate, group 
incentive rate, or other incentive method, if the average hourly 
earnings of the employer's workers paid by such incentive method, taken 
as a group, are at least equal to the prevailing hourly wage required 
by subparagraph (A)(i) for the hours worked at the incentive payment 
method, after making any additions to any worker's pay required to 
comply subparagraph (A)(ii).''.
    (b) Definitions.--Section 218(i) of the Immigration and Nationality 
Act (8 U.S.C. 1188(i)) is amended by adding at the end the following:
            ``(3) The term `prevailing wage' means, with respect to an 
        agricultural occupation in an area of intended employment, the 
        rate of wages that includes the 51st percentile of employees 
        with similar experience and qualifications in the agricultural 
        occupation in the area of intended employment, expressed in 
        terms of the prevailing method of pay for the occupation in the 
        area of intended employment.''.