California Ag Labor Intelligence
September 2026 Ag Labor Report
Published September 17, 2026 • Wages, Cal/OSHA, H-2A & compliance deadlines
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♦ AB 2646 ON THE GOVERNOR'S DESK ♦ $19.75/HR AG WAGE — DECISION DUE SEPT 30 ♦ H-2A BACK-PAY WINDOW OPEN SINCE SEPT 2 ♦ STATE MINIMUM GOES TO $17.40 ON JAN 1 ♦ CAL/OSHA HEAT DRAFT — COMMENT CLOSES SEPT 21
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New from B Mello
The rules that govern your crew, once a month, in plain English.
You already get the field conditions, the markets, the fuel and the crime map from us. This is the one that covers the other half of the operation — wages, overtime, Cal/OSHA, H-2A, and the deadlines that arrive whether or not the harvest is in. Every figure below is dated and sourced, and we tell you plainly when something is still in play rather than settled.
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Section 1
On the Governor's Desk
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Decision due September 30
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AB 2646 — a $19.75 hourly floor for ag
The bill sets a $19.75 per hour minimum for “approved agricultural employees” — H-2A and out-of-state seasonal workers — and for “corresponding employees,” meaning California residents doing comparable work for the same employer in the same county. The rate would index annually to the Social Security COLA.
It cleared the Assembly 58–16 and the Senate 30–8, and was presented to the Governor on August 31. He has until September 30 to sign or veto. If signed, it takes effect January 1, 2027.
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What it means if you run any H-2A crew: the $19.75 would not stop at that crew. It would reach your domestic workers doing comparable work in the same county. Against the $17.40 statewide floor arriving January 1, that is about 13 percent on top — on every hour of comparable work, not just the visa hours.
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Status as of press time. If you are budgeting 2027 labor, build both cases — signed and vetoed — before the end of the month.
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Also awaiting a signature
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AB 2227 — FLC bonds double. Farm labor contractor surety bonds go from $25,000 / $50,000 / $75,000 to $50,000 / $100,000 / $150,000, by payroll tier. Presented September 8. If you use a contractor, this lands on their renewal cost, and it will find its way into your rate.
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AB 187 — sheepherder and goatherder wage parity extended to January 1, 2029. Presented September 8.
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AB 2321 — expanded Cal/OSHA investigation authority and added criminal penalties. Effective January 1, 2027 if signed.
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Farm automation authorization failed. The late budget-trailer language that would have opened the door to autonomous tractor operation died on labor opposition. It will be back.
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Section 2
Wage Watch
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$17.40
State minimum
Jan 1, 2027
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8 / 40
Ag overtime
all sizes
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$72,384
Exempt salary
Jan 1, 2027
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The Department of Finance certified the 2027 rate on July 31 — a 2.99 percent CPI increase, just under the 3.5 percent statutory cap. The overtime phase-in is finished: since January 1, 2025 every California ag employer, regardless of headcount, owes overtime after 8 hours a day and 40 in a week, double time past 12, and the seventh-day premium on top. Small-employer relief is gone.
The January 1 payroll reset
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• Base hourly rate to $17.40
• Piece-rate rest and recovery floor, and other nonproductive time, to $17.40
• Exempt supervisor salaries to $72,384 a year — a crew boss below that, or paid hourly, is non-exempt and owed ag overtime
• Reporting-time and split-shift premiums recalculated
• Wage order postings and Labor Code 2810.5 new-hire notices reprinted
• Written pay-change notices issued
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Worth a second look at piece rate. Rest and recovery periods have to be paid separately, at the higher of your workweek average hourly rate or minimum wage, and other nonproductive time — waiting, moving between blocks, equipment moves, meetings — at no less than minimum wage. Both have to show on the stub as separate line items with hours, rate and gross. Wage statement penalties run $50 for the first pay period and $100 per employee per period after, and the Labor Commissioner recovered more than $6 million for farmworkers this year on sick leave and wage protections.
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Section 3
The H-2A Desk
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Preserve your records now
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A court threw out the wage rule but left the rates standing
On August 26 a federal court in the Eastern District of California held that the Department of Labor's 2025 AEWR methodology was arbitrary and capricious — the two-tier skill structure, the housing adjustment, the use of a wage survey that excludes farms, and the way multi-duty jobs get classified. The court did not vacate it. Current rates stay enforceable while DOL builds a new method.
Here is the part that reaches your checkbook. DOL's own notice, posted September 2, says employers “may be required to make wage adjustment payments” covering the period from September 2 forward — to H-2A workers and to U.S. workers in corresponding employment. DOL says no obligation exists at this moment. That is not the same as saying none is coming.
Keep, starting today: exact hours and earnings by worker, occupational classification and actual job duties, and current contact information — name, address, SSN, I-94, email and phone — for every H-2A worker and every domestic worker in corresponding employment.
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California AEWR — effective August 3, 2026
CATEGORY |
RATE |
WHAT YOU PAY |
Skill Level I |
$16.59 |
$16.90 — state floor |
Skill Level II |
$18.60 |
$18.60 — AEWR governs |
Skill I, housing-adjusted |
$13.52 |
$16.90 — state floor |
Skill II, housing-adjusted |
$15.53 |
$16.90 — state floor |
Read that table twice, because the national story and the California story point opposite directions. Nationally the new methodology cut the AEWR. Here, three of the four California rates now sit below the state minimum wage, so they never apply — your floor is $16.90 today and $17.40 in January. Only Skill Level II work at $18.60 is actually governed by the federal number. The year before, a single California AEWR of $19.97 governed everything.
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Filing for a spring 2027 start
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For a March 1 date of need:
• Job order to California EDD — December 16–31, 2026
• ETA-9142A to the Chicago National Processing Center — by January 15, 2027
• Housing inspection and certification — within 30 days of the start
• For an April 1 start, shift everything about a month
Start assembling 90 to 120 days out. The job order window opens first, and a late job order pushes everything behind it.
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California certified 35,138 H-2A positions in FY2025, third in the country — but the state's share has slipped three years running while national use climbs. Nationally, first-half FY2026 certifications ran nearly 17 percent ahead of the year before. Remember the program is not just the wage: free housing, inbound and outbound travel with subsistence, daily transport, workers' compensation, the three-fourths guarantee, and filing fees that have risen sharply. Published work puts the non-wage load at roughly half again on top of the wage bill.
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Section 4
Cal/OSHA Corner
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Comment closes September 21
Cal/OSHA put out a revised heat illness draft on August 14 that would merge the indoor and outdoor rules. Three changes matter to you: the 95°F high-heat procedures would stop being limited to agriculture, construction, landscaping, oil and gas, and heavy transport — every outdoor employer would carry them; unacclimatized-worker procedures would extend to anyone returning after more than 14 days away; and the plan would have to be handed out at hire, at training, and annually. Rhabdomyolysis gets added to the definition of heat illness. It is a discussion draft, not a rule — but the comment window is open right now.
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The numbers behind the two heat standards
OUTDOOR — 8 CCR 3395 |
INDOOR — 8 CCR 3396 |
Shade at 80°F
High-heat procedures at 95°F
Ag-only: 10-minute cool-down every 2 hours at 95°F+
Water: 1 quart per person per hour
Cool-down rest: 5 minutes minimum, any time
Close observation, first 14 days |
In scope at 82°F
Full controls at 87°F — or 82°F in heavy gear or high radiant heat
Covers packing sheds, shops, and cabs without working A/C
Cool-down area kept under 82°F
Measure, log date, time, location
Keep records 12 months |
Both need a written plan in English and in the language most of your crew speaks, kept at the worksite. In 2025 the outdoor heat standard was the second most-cited Cal/OSHA standard in the state, behind only the Injury and Illness Prevention Program. Late reporting of a serious injury sat at number four — that one carries a $5,000 minimum on its own. A serious violation runs up to $25,000, and a willful one up to $162,851.
One more on the calendar: the Standards Board has to adopt a permanent workplace violence prevention standard by December 31. The SB 553 obligations you have carried since July 2024 — written plan, violent incident log, annual training — become a citable Title 8 section. Cal/OSHA publishes an agriculture-specific fact sheet on it, and it reaches employer-provided housing.
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Section 5
The Compliance Calendar
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DATE |
WHAT IS DUE |
Sept 21 |
Cal/OSHA heat illness draft — comment window closes |
Sept 30 |
Governor's deadline to sign or veto — AB 2646, AB 2227, AB 187, AB 2321 |
Dec 16–31 |
H-2A job order to EDD for a March 1 date of need |
Dec 31 |
Standards Board deadline to adopt the permanent workplace violence standard |
Jan 1 |
Minimum wage $17.40, exempt salary $72,384, postings and new-hire notices reprinted, piece-rate floors reset |
Jan 15 |
ETA-9142A filed for a March 1 H-2A start |
Feb 1 |
Know Your Rights notice to every employee, in their language — SB 294. Up to $500 per employee if it is missed |
Feb 1 – Apr 30 |
Cal/OSHA Form 300A summary posted at every worksite — required even with zero injuries |
Mar 2 |
Form 300A submitted electronically to federal OSHA |
Rolling |
FLC license renewal opens 90 days before expiration — file at least 60 days out. Pesticide handler and fieldworker training is annual. Heat plan and IIPP reviewed before the 2027 season |
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Section 6
Labor Market Brief
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$20.35
CA field wage
+4.1% YoY
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38%
Labor share
specialty crops
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409,100
CA farm jobs
July 2026
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The wage number comes with an asterisk this year. That $20.35 California field-worker rate is from the April 2025 reference week, and it is the last one there will ever be — USDA discontinued the Farm Labor Survey in August 2025. The survey that set the AEWR for decades is gone, which is a large part of why the wage rule is now in front of a judge.
Workers' compensation is going up. The advisory pure premium benchmark rose to $1.65 per $100 of payroll effective September 1, a 6.6 percent increase. The rating bureau asked for 10.4 percent and the Insurance Commissioner adopted the lower figure — if you saw 10.4 in a trade headline, that was the request, not the result. Cumulative trauma claim frequency and medical costs are driving it. Review your experience modification before renewal.
Availability. A 2026 survey of specialty crop producers found 48 percent hit a labor shortage during the 2025 season, 41 percent used H-2A, and 96 percent saw labor costs rise or hold flat. About half either have automation in place or plan it within five years, with harvest at the top of the list.
On enforcement and absence. A survey of more than 500 California farmers across 50 counties, published in February, found fewer than 1 percent lost workers to a direct enforcement action on their own operation, while about 15 percent lost workers because of concerns about enforcement activity, and roughly 14 percent reduced production as a result. The documented disruption was people staying home, not raids on the ranch — and it landed hardest on labor-intensive crops.
Organizing. Eight California farms were certified through majority sign-up between October 2023 and November 2025, and there were no secret-ballot elections at all in 2023 or 2024 — a first in the Board's history. The Fifth District Court of Appeal dismissed Wonderful Nurseries' challenge to its certification in November 2025. A separate federal case brought by workers is still pending.
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Section 7
Product Spotlight
Two inputs that ride along on work you are already doing
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Featured
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JABB SPE-120 ES
& SBb 2.5
Beauveria bassiana inoculants
One ounce per acre at 1×108 cfu/mL. Goes out by seed treatment, in-furrow, through the drip, or foliar — which means it tank-mixes into a pass already on your schedule instead of buying a trip of its own.
• SPE-120 ES — organic, OMRI listed, CDFA organic input
• SBb 2.5 — conventional
• Zero pre-harvest interval
• Safe for lacewings, predatory mites, parasitic wasps
• California-labeled
Handling: apply at 68–80°F, avoid above 85°F. Foliar early morning or late evening, at leaf undersides. Separate from copper by 5–7 days and sulfur by 3–5 days.
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Also this month
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Aqua-Drive Elite
Soil surfactant — 52% total actives
Runs through the irrigation system you are already operating. No separate application pass, no crew hours added to the schedule.
• 31% alkylpolyglucoside, 19% poloxalene, 2% polydimethylsiloxane
• 1–6 qt/acre initial application
• Then 1–6 pt/acre every 45–65 days
• Bio Algae co-pack at 1:1 or 2:1
• Distinct product from the older Aqua-Drive
Handling: back-flow check valve required. WARNING signal word — read and follow the label.
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How they fit together
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JABB |
AQUA-DRIVE ELITE |
How it goes out |
Tank-mix into a scheduled pass, or through the drip |
Through the irrigation system |
Added crew hours |
None — rides along |
None — goes in with water |
Rate |
1 oz/acre |
1–6 qt, then 1–6 pt every 45–65 days |
Organic option |
SPE-120 ES, OMRI listed |
Ask us |
Grower experience shared here is field observation, not a performance claim. These are sold as inoculants and soil products. Always read and follow the label.
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Labor is the biggest line on the sheet. Make the acres earn it.
Labor runs close to 40 cents of every dollar of cash expense on a specialty crop farm. When that cost is fixed and climbing, the return has to come out of the ground. GPS-guided soil sampling is $50 a field and water testing is $65 a sample — and both tell you where the yield is being left behind. Custom blends, compost supply and fertigation planning follow from what the numbers say.
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This Month in American History
September 17, 1787 — The Constitution Is Signed
Two hundred thirty-nine years ago today, in a Philadelphia room with the windows shut against eavesdroppers through a brutal summer, thirty-nine of the fifty-five delegates signed the Constitution. Three who stayed to the last day refused to sign it. Almost nobody in that room got everything he came for.
What they produced was not a finished country. It was a set of rules for arguing about one, written on purpose so it could be changed — and it has been changed twenty-seven times since. Franklin, eighty-one years old and carried to the hall each day because he could no longer walk it, signed anyway, and told the room that the older he got the more he distrusted his own judgment.
There is something fitting about running that anniversary in a report about regulation. The rules change. They are supposed to. The work is keeping up with them and staying in business while you do — and out here that has been the job for a long time.
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We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice … and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution.
— Preamble to the Constitution
Signed at Philadelphia, September 17, 1787
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To the Men & Women of Our Armed Forces and First Responders
The rules in this report get written and argued over because somebody guarantees the room they are argued in. That is you — on posts around the world, and in every fire hall and squad room between here and the coast, including the ones that answer a call to a field road at two in the morning. We farm in freedom because you stand in its defense.
You are the reason we are Safe and Free.
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Make The Acres Earn The Labor
Labor runs close to 40 cents of every dollar of cash expense on a specialty crop farm. When that cost is fixed and climbing, the return has to come out of the ground. GPS-guided soil sampling is $50 a field and water testing is $65 a sample — both tell you where the yield is being left behind. Reach out any time.
GPS Soil Sampling
Water Testing
Custom Blends
Fertigation Planning
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Every issue we have ever published is free at bmelloag.com/reports — field conditions, ag crime, labor, markets, fuel and fishing.
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This one comes from the other side of the operation — the payroll runs, the wage orders, and the calls that start with “did you hear what they are doing in Sacramento.” The rules keep moving and the deadlines do not care how harvest is going. We’d rather you hear it from someone who shares your sunrises, your sunsets, and the long day in between. That’s the promise behind every B Mello Ag Labor Report.
Proudly American · Rooted in the American Dream
Bryan Mello
B Mello Ag Services — Central Valley, California
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B Mello Ag Services · Central Valley, CA
Premiere Issue · Published September 17, 2026
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(559) 816-3889
bryan@bmelloag.com
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This newsletter is provided for informational and educational purposes only and is not legal advice. Wage rates, regulations, filing deadlines and enforcement policy change frequently and vary by county, crop and operation, and several items reported here are in active litigation or awaiting final action. Always consult qualified labor counsel, the California Labor Commissioner’s office, Cal/OSHA, or the U.S. Department of Labor before making payroll, employment or compliance decisions. B Mello Ag Services assumes no liability for decisions made based on this publication.
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