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HispanicVista Guest Columnists

Bush Administration Planning Guestworker Exploitation

By Bruce Goldstein

Executive Director, Farmworker Justice

[Op-edl for Hispanic Vista]

September 2, 2008

The Bush Administration is about to finalize plans for the biggest overhaul of the nation’s agricultural guestworker program in its 65 year history.  The overhaul comes in the form of regulations changes by the Department of Labor (DOL) under the H-2A temporary foreign agricultural worker program.  DOL and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) published their proposed policy changes earlier this year.  The proposal lowered wage rates, worker protections and minimum housing requirements for the workers who harvest our nation’s crops. Even worse, the Administration is pursuing this strategy at the expense of a bipartisan solution in Congress to reform the program in more balanced and legal ways.  The final version of the changes is expected to come any day now.

Under the H-2A program, an employer may apply to hire foreign workers on temporary work permits to perform seasonal agricultural jobs only if they cannot find U.S. workers.  The DOL is obligated by law to require that U.S. workers be given preference for jobs on U.S. soil, but the Administration aims to minimize these recruitment obligations.  Employers will cry “labor shortage” without making real efforts to find available U.S. workers.  Such a policy would not only be illegal but would harm tens of thousands of U.S. farmworkers who need jobs.

The program is equally bad for the foreign workers.  The H-2A visa binds them to a single employer.  They have no bargaining power to negotiate better wages or working conditions and this restricted status makes guest workers highly vulnerable to abuse.

The program is supposed to protect both U.S. and foreign workers from these kinds of abuses, but current protections are inadequate, enforcement is minimal and the result is a dirty trail of worker abuse. Workers are cheated out of wages.  U.S. workers are denied jobs and fired without just cause because many employers prefer to hire vulnerable guestworkers. The proposed changes will only make these abuses worse.

Most American employers who face a labor shortage compete for workers by improving wages and working conditions. We cannot allow agribusiness to be exempt from the law of supply and demand and rely on an exploitable foreign temporary workforce.

We need a real solution to the farm labor problem, one that doesn’t undermine the labor laws of this country and put workers at risk.  The majority of the nation’s hard-working farmworkers – hundreds of thousands -- are undocumented.  The Bush proposal does nothing to address this reality and instead offers only disastrous changes that will subject U.S. workers and foreign workers to abuse.

AgJOBS, the Agricultural Jobs, Opportunities, Benefits and Security Act, is the result of years of negotiations between agricultural employers and workers.  It would reform the H-2A program in more balanced ways.  It would give eligible undocumented workers an opportunity to earn immigration status by continuing to perform farm work and would help ensure our food security.  It is good for employers, good for workers and good for America.  Congress should take action now to prevent the proposed changes of the Bush administration and pass AgJOBS.

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Bruce Goldstein is an attorney and Executive Director of Farmworker Justice, a national advocacy and education organization for migrant and seasonal farmworkers.  More information is available at www.farmworkerjustice.org .