California’s Sheepherders at the Center of an Overtime Battle
Civil Eats, 8 June 2022
In recent years, HAP has brought multiple lawsuits regarding the wages and working conditions of H-2A sheepherders, including accusations of human trafficking and wage suppression. As in the current overtime debate, a core question of those lawsuits has been just how much sheepherders work. The labor is challenging to quantify because they live on-site, are always on call, and because the work—which includes tasks such as moving sheep, caring for herding dogs, and setting up electric fencing—changes over the course of the year.
Bring on call 24-7 also has its challenges. “Sometimes you have to get up at night because [the sheep] break through the fence and escape,” says Ricky Romel Cerrón Porta, a sheepherder from Llamapsillon, Peru, who also works at Kaos. “You know because the dogs start barking, and the sheep make different noises, too.”
Civil Eats, 8 June 2022
In recent years, HAP has brought multiple lawsuits regarding the wages and working conditions of H-2A sheepherders, including accusations of human trafficking and wage suppression. As in the current overtime debate, a core question of those lawsuits has been just how much sheepherders work. The labor is challenging to quantify because they live on-site, are always on call, and because the work—which includes tasks such as moving sheep, caring for herding dogs, and setting up electric fencing—changes over the course of the year.
Bring on call 24-7 also has its challenges. “Sometimes you have to get up at night because [the sheep] break through the fence and escape,” says Ricky Romel Cerrón Porta, a sheepherder from Llamapsillon, Peru, who also works at Kaos. “You know because the dogs start barking, and the sheep make different noises, too.”