The H-2B community has won an appeal against the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) regarding the H-2B wage rule, the Professional Landcare Network (PLANET) reported.

Earlier this year, Island Holdings, which operates a seasonal resort in Edgartown, Mass., brought a case against the DOL, appealing a mid-season prevailing wage determination (PWD) instructing the resort to raise H-2B workers’ wages under the DOL’s H-2B interim final wage rule. PLANET had signed on to the appeal and provided an amicus brief.

On Dec. 3, the Bureau of Alien Labor Certifications Appeals (BALCA) ruled in the plantiff’s favor by unanimous decision.

“The department’s H-2B regulations do not require an employer to increase the wage it offers and pays its H-2B workers after the department has approved and certified its application for temporary employment certification,” BALCA said in the ruling. “It was an abuse of discretion for the certifying officer to affirm the supplemental PWDs, which impose a legal obligation that is not otherwise required by law. We therefore remand the supplemental PWDs to the certifying officer with instructions to vacate the increase wage obligations that they purport to impose.”

It’s not clear how the DOL will apply the ruling in this case to other mid-season wage determinations, PLANET reported. Circumstances differ among employers, and while many employers appealed their wage determinations under the interim final rule, not all employers may have done so. Some already may have paid the supplemental wages to workers.

Additionally, PLANET said the BALCA decision does not have an effect on the wages companies must pay H-2B workers next season. H-2B wage rates for next season will continue to be governed by the interim final rule which calls for a mean wage rate akin to the Occupation Employment Statistics (OES) Level 3 wages.

The DOL program rule and the DOL 2011 H-2B wage rule continue to be blocked by a court order and congressional prohibition respectively.