ARAWC Government Relations Alert
The U.S. House of Representatives just passed H.R. 5038, known as the Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2019, which contains a federal mandate related to workers’ compensation for agricultural workers. Specifically, the bill says “if a job opportunity is not covered by or is exempt from the State workers’ compensation law, a registered agricultural employer shall provide, at no cost to the worker, insurance covering injury and disease arising out of, and in the course of, the worker’s employment, which will provide benefits at least equal to those provided under the State workers’ compensation law.”
This is troubling for several reasons. It is a federal mandate to provide state workers’ compensation or something “equal to” regardless of state law. It raises a question, similar to the debates we saw in Oklahoma, of what is “at least equal to” workers’ compensation? It is an example of federal intervention into traditional state workers’ compensation.
Despite House passage with both Republican and Democratic votes, the broader bill contains controversial provisions that will slow down Senate consideration of the legislation. Specifically, the immigration provisions are already being criticized as an amnesty bill for illegal immigrants. We don’t expect the Senate will take up the bill until after the
1
st
of the year.
ARAWC will discuss the legislation on the next government relations call scheduled for January 8. In the meantime, we welcome feedback from our members, particularly our insurance members, regarding what impact it will have on nonsubscription coverage in Texas. Please provide your comments to
adonelson@arawc.org.
.
