In North Carolina, the overwhelming majority of H-2A workers are recruited in Mexico by the North Carolina Growers Association and work primarily on tobacco and vegetable farms for the season. More information on the H-2A program can be found elsewhere in this guide. In many cases, growers turn to an intermediary to supply needed farmworkers. To add to the confusion, crew leaders are sometimes just farmworkers employed by a grower to manage farmworkers. To counter widespread abuse among farm labor contractors, the federal government now insists that they register with the U.S. Department of Labor.
Growers sometimes use piece rate to determine pay for farmworkers in place of hourly wages.
For example, a worker might receive 40 cents per bucket of tomatoes picked. At this rate, a worker would need to pick 13 buckets per hour to make minimum wage. For workers covered by minimum wage laws, the piece rate is not supposed to work out to less than the mandated hourly wage. However, employer abuse of piece rate wages is widespread.