We’re proud to announce a significant victory for our client, Cirilo Ucharima Alvarado, and thousands of current and former sheepherders who have worked in the United States under the H-2A agricultural visa program. On August 8, 2025, the Judge Miranda Du of the U.S. District Court for the District of Nevada denied all motions to dismiss filed by the Western Range Association (WRA) and eight of its member ranches, allowing our Sherman Act antitrust claims to proceed in full.
The Court’s decision affirms a simple but powerful principle: when employers collude to suppress wages and restrict worker mobility, they violate the antitrust laws. Arrangements that deprive workers of the benefits of free competition may be unlawful.
Background: A Labor Market Rigged Against Workers
According to the lawsuit, Mr. Ucharima Alvarado, a highly skilled sheepherder from Peru, came to Nevada on an H-2A visa in 2020 with hopes of earning a fair wage for his decades of experience. Instead, like thousands of other foreign sheepherders, he found himself trapped in an industry where pay was fixed at the minimum wage, between $4 and $5 per hour for grueling workweeks spanning from 80-90 hours. Sheepherders like Mr. Ucharima Alvarado have to work in isolation under harsh and sometimes abusive conditions.
The defendants are WRA and eight of its member ranches. According to the lawsuit, the WRA’s member ranches control the majority of H-2A sheepherder jobs in the American West. According to the complaint, by joining together, the ranches operated not as independent competitors, but as a cartel.
Through the WRA, the member ranches allegedly:
- Fixed wages at or near the Department of Labor’s minimum permissible rate, well below what a competitive market would yield.
- Divided the labor market by assigning workers to specific ranches and prohibiting them from moving to other member ranches without employer and WRA approval.
- Adopted and enforced no-poach rules—some dating back decades—that barred ranches from soliciting one another’s workers, even when a worker’s visa could lawfully be transferred.
The plaintiff argues that this arrangement stripped sheepherders of their ability to seek better pay or working conditions and entrenched poverty wages in a dangerous and demanding profession.
The Court’s Ruling
The defendants sought dismissal on multiple grounds, arguing they were immune from antitrust liability under various doctrines, including “single entity” status, statutory agricultural exemptions, and implied immunity from the H-2A regulatory scheme. The Court carefully considered and rejected each argument, holding:
- No Antitrust Immunity: The Court reaffirmed that neither the Clayton Act’s limited agricultural protections nor the Capper-Volstead Act shields agreements that suppress competition in the labor market. These statutes protect cooperative marketing of agricultural products—not wage-fixing or market allocation among competing employers.
- Not a “Single Entity”: The WRA is made up of independently owned, profit-seeking ranches that are horizontal competitors for labor. The existence of an association does not transform them into one legal actor for antitrust purposes.
- No Implied Repeal: Nothing in the H-2A program authorizes or requires collusion on wages or hiring, and compliance with minimum wage regulations can coexist with antitrust enforcement.
- Sufficient Allegations: The Third Amended Complaint adds detailed facts showing each ranch’s agreement to WRA’s policies, knowledge of the no-transfer rules, and participation in coordinated wage-setting. The Court held these allegations plausibly support claims under Section 1 of the Sherman Act for both per se unlawful wage-fixing and market allocation.
What This Means for Sheepherders
This ruling clears the way for discovery to resume in the case and for the plaintiff to continue prosecuting the case on behalf of a proposed class of all persons who worked as sheepherders for the WRA or its member ranches through the H-2A visa program from any time on or after June 1, 2018.
If successful, this case will not only provide monetary relief for workers harmed by the alleged conspiracy, but also help dismantle structural barriers that have long prevented migrant sheepherders from receiving fair pay and treatment.
Our Commitment Going Forward
We are committed to pursuing full accountability from the WRA and its member ranches, and to ensuring that the voices of sheepherders, often marginalized and working far from public view, are heard in court. This case is about dignity, fairness, and the right of every worker to participate in a competitive labor market.
We thank our co-counsel at Fairmark Partners LLP, Towards Justice, and Thierman Buck LLP for their tireless work on this case, and we especially thank Mr. Ucharima Alvarado for his courage in standing up not only for himself but for thousands of others.