…For the last decade, a Jamaican farmworker has harvested apples at Porpiglia Farms. He shares his living quarters with eight others. They wash their laundry by hand. And if they perform poorly, they may be sent to live in a cramped garage.

Recently, the laborer, 42, who comes to work on an H-2A temporary visa, was among 500 farmworkers who have voted to join the United Farm Workers union…

The New York Farm Bureau and owners at the farms where the unions have formed are challenging whether temporary workers can organize or bargain collectively. The issue has become ripe following 2019 changes to the state’s farm labor laws, ushered in by the Democrat-controlled state Legislature…

Poor working conditions, particularly for those who are contracted to work under temporary visas, have led to the efforts to organize, the laborers said…

The New York Farm Bureau declined to make available the farms that are involved in the case. The president of Porpiglia Farms did not return a request for comment. Operators of other farms in the greater Capital Region and Hudson Valley, which employ hundreds of temporary migrant workers, declined to comment for this story…