The U.S. Department of Labor is asking a federal judge to keep the door open to thousands of foreign farmworkers arriving this month to fill jobs on Washington farms.

The department disputes claims by the farmworker union Familias Unidas por la Justica that the foreign workers will reduce wages for its members and other domestic farmworkers.

The union’s perspective on the upcoming harvest is “hardly reliable,” the Labor Department asserted in a brief filed June 7 in the U.S. District Court for Western Washington.

“The plaintiff’s argument that domestic workers in Washington will suffer irreparable harm during the 2024 harvest season is both speculative and based on assumptions that are inaccurate,” the brief reads.

The Skagit County-based union is seeking a preliminary injunction barring H-2A workers from Washington until the court resolves allegations Biden administration regulations are depressing farmworker wages.

The Biden administration adopted the regulations in 2022 intending to safeguard domestic wages as U.S. farmers hire an increasing number of foreign farmworkers to fill a labor shortage.

The lawsuit claims that in practice the regulations are cumbersome and ineffective, in many cases failing to identify piece rates for picking particular varieties of fruit.

Familias alleges the rules are making it possible for farmers to pay $19.25 an hour, the minimum H-2A wage, rather than prevailing piece rates.

The Labor Department said the union’s theory that farmers prefer to pay an hourly wage over piece rates was “questionable.”

Piece rates motivate workers to pick faster, allowing farmers to harvest and sell their crops sooner, the department noted. “The data bears this out,” the brief states.

Most Washington farmers seeking H-2A workers are offering piece rates, Office of Foreign Labor Certification administrator Brian Pasternak said in a court declaration.

Union representatives did not have a comment Monday. Columbia Legal Services, Farmworker Justice, and Seattle law firm Barnard Iglitzin and Lavitt filed the lawsuit on behalf of Familias.

Upsetting H-2A regulations because of allegations coming from one state after one harvest would be unprecedented, according to the Labor Department.

The department said it is evaluating 2023 wage surveys collected by the Washington Employment Security Department and will publish prevailing piece rates for 2024 when the review is through.

A preliminary injunction, sought on the eve of cherry harvest, would not be in the public’s interest, according to the department.

“If plaintiff’s proposed preliminary injunction is granted, these foreign workers will be unavailable to Washington growers indefinitely,” the department’s brief reads.

“The H-2A program is intended to serve not just the interests of domestic workers, but also the interests of U.S. growers in having an adequate source of labor,” according to the department.

The Labor Department has so far in 2024 certified more than 18,000 openings for foreign farmworkers in Washington, the fifth-most among the 50 states.

The Biden administration’s H-2A regulations on prevailing lawsuits also have been challenged by farm groups, which claim the department’s methodologies are driving labor costs too high.

Familias represents about 500 workers at Sakuma Bros. Farms in Skagit County. The union claims 950 members statewide.

The union submitted sworn statements from farmworkers who said they didn’t want to work for hourly wages because piece rates pay much more.

U.S. District Judge John Chun is presiding over the case.