Guest Column
AgJobs a remarkable compromise
- By Bruce Goldstein
- MIAMI HERALD
- October 25, 2007
The majority of America's farm and ranch workers are undocumented immigrants and are treated without the dignity they deserve. Some people would like to get rid of these laborers, but their plans are both unrealistic and inhumane.
Out of about 2.5 million agricultural employees, perhaps 60 percent are working without authorized status. Who else will pick the millions of pounds of fruits and vegetables Americans consume each year? We need to move beyond the emotionalism in debates about immigration and adopt solutions that are good for farmworkers, their employers and the nation.
The presence of so many undocumented workers translates into low wages and poor conditions for all farmworkers, including the hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens and authorized immigrants performing farm work. Most undocumented workers are too fearful of deportation to challenge unfair treatment or report illegal conduct. Even authorized workers are reluctant to make demands on their employers for fear of being replaced by an even more exploitable undocumented worker.
Farmworkers' incomes are low, usually less than $13,000 a year. Housing is scarce and often decrepit. Few farmworkers receive even basic fringe benefits such as paid sick leave. Health insurance is rarely offered. Not surprisingly, the low pay and bad conditions cause high employee turnover and a constant quest for new, and foreign, workers.
When most American companies want to attract job applicants and increase productivity, they generally raise wages and improve working conditions. But not Big Agriculture; they want a large supply of fast harvesters who are paid low wages with minimal government oversight. They have succeeded in the past, largely by hiring vulnerable undocumented workers. This industry's failure to follow normal American business practices means that the government must now step in.
Congress should strengthen labor protections for farmworkers and require the government to greatly increase its enforcement of both labor law and immigration law. In addition, Congress should end the stalemate over policy and adopt a remarkable compromise -- known as AgJobs -- endorsed by farmworker unions, agricultural employers and politicians across the political spectrum.
AgJobs would provide agribusiness with a stable, legal, labor force while providing farmworkers a reasonable degree of protection from abuse. The bill contains two parts:
• First, it would create an earned legalization program under which undocumented farmworkers would come forward, prove their recent work experience in the United States, pay fines and fees, and then work for three to five more years in agriculture to earn legal immigration status.
• Second, AgJobs contains a compromise that would revise the existing H2A agricultural guest-worker program, which allows employers to hire foreign citizens on temporary, nonimmigrant work visas as long as U.S. workers' labor standards are not undermined.
America needs its farmworkers. We are eating healthier and are buying more fruits and vegetables. In fact, the U.S. Department of Agriculture has good news for us on trade: We are exporting more and more fruits and vegetables to other nations. The people who create this bounty and place the food on the world's dinner tables should be treated with dignity.
The reality is that if we deported a substantial number of undocumented farmworkers, there would be a tremendous labor shortage. Machines are not yet available to replace human beings in harvesting many of the fresh fruits and vegetables we consume.
As a nation we are also concerned about security. We should want to know who is living and working in this country, but we don't really know who is performing farm work. A responsible solution to this farm-labor problem would allow law-enforcement agencies to focus on finding criminals and terrorists, rather than on deporting poor immigrants seeking to support their families by producing America's food.
AgJobs is not perfect but it is a responsible, balanced approach. It would meet the needs of agricultural employers and give farmworkers a chance at decent working conditions. And we Americans could feel better about the fruits and vegetables we enjoy every day.
Bruce Goldstein is executive director of Farmworker Justice, a national advocacy organization for migrant farm workers.
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