| October
4, 2004
Farmworkers
Deserve Immigration Solutions, Not
Excuses
By Bruce
Goldstein
The perpetual “plight”
of migrant farmworkers deserves
solutions, not more excuses for inaction.
Efforts in Congress to improve labor
standards and immigration status for
farmworkers have been thwarted
repeatedly, often by influential
agricultural employers.
Now, Congress has
before it a reform package supported by a
broad, national coalition, including
major agribusiness employers and
farmworker organizations, and a
filibuster-proof majority of sixty-three
Senators, including a majority of both
Republican and Democratic Senators.
The people who
harvest our fruits and vegetables suffer
low wage rates and poverty incomes. Very
few workers in labor-intensive
agriculture receive paid sick leave or
health insurance. Wage-hour
violations are rampant. Labor
unions are organizing and helping
farmworkers win decent contracts and a
voice at work, but unions represent a
small percentage of farmworkers.
Not surprisingly,
agriculture experiences high employee
turnover. While many make farm work
a career, some seek to escape its low
wages and backward labor relations.
Although some farmworker children stay in
the fields as adults, many new
farmworkers come from abroad, especially Mexico.
Our immigration system has not kept pace
with this turnover.
Consequently, a
majority of farmworkers now are
unauthorized immigrants. Undocumented
workers often feel too vulnerable to make
demands on their employers or to ask
government agencies to prosecute illegal
conduct. Wages and working
conditions will not improve in such an
unstable labor market.
Since 1995 Congress
has been debating solutions to the labor
and immigration issues in agriculture but
legislators fought to a stalemate over
competing policy proposals. Now, a
major compromise has enough support to
pass.
AgJOBS is the
nickname for the Agricultural Job
Opportunity, Benefits and Security Act.
The principal cosponsors include an
amazingly diverse group: Senators
Larry Craig (R.-Idaho) and Sen. Edward
Kennedy (D.-Mass.), and Representatives
Howard Berman (D.-Calif.) and Chris
Cannon (R.-Utah). The United Farm
Workers of America played the leading
role in negotiating with major
agribusiness groups to resolve years of
harsh conflict.
The bill contains
two parts. First, it would create
an “earned legalization”
program. Applicants could obtain a
temporary immigration status by proving
that they been employed in U.S.
agriculture in the recent past either as
a legal guestworker or as an undocumented
worker. If the temporary resident
then performs a specified amount of
agricultural work, during a three to six
year period, he or she could convert to
lawful permanent resident status and
receive a “green card.”
Security checks would prevent terrorists,
criminals and other unwanted individuals
from using the program. The
farmworker’s spouse and minor
children also would eventually become
eligible to be immigrants. Several
hundred thousand current farmworkers
would be eligible for this program.
Second, AgJOBS would
revise the existing H-2A agricultural
guestworker program, which allows
employers to hire foreign citizens on
temporary, nonimmigrant work visas.
The H-2A program’s history of abuses
made negotiations by farmworker advocates
with employers difficult. The
reforms would benefit employers by making
the program easier and quicker to use
while retaining or expanding important
labor standards to prevent job losses and
wage cuts among U.S. workers and protect
foreign workers from exploitation.
The compromise is
win-win-win even though it required
painful concessions all around. Farmworkers
who earn immigration status would
increase their bargaining power with
employers. Businesses would obtain
a legal, stable labor supply of
experienced farmworkers.
If labor shortages were to occur in the
future, the H-2A program would be
available. Moreover, the U.S. government
would know who resides within our borders
and would be better able to enforce
immigration and labor laws in
agriculture.
Some object to
AgJOBS saying that people who crossed our
borders illegally should not be “rewarded”
with an “amnesty.” AgJOBS
is not an “amnesty.” It
contains tough, multi-year work
requirements to earn immigration status.
The opponents would preserve the current
unacceptable situation. These
farmworkers already live and work in the United
States; this nation has not been willing,
and is not going, to deport them. Some
AgJOBS opponents claim they “support
American workers,” but Congress is
not about to change federal labor laws in
pro-farmworker ways over the objections
of agricultural employers.
We need solutions,
not hollow rhetoric. AgJOBS may not
give farmworkers all that they need, but
it is a compromise that is realistic and
sensible.
In January President
Bush delivered a speech recognizing the
value of immigrants to this nation but
has not offered specific legislation.
In July, Senate Majority Leader Bill
Frist prevented Senator Larry Craig, a
fellow Republican, from gaining a debate
and vote on AgJOBS. The Wall Street
Journal reported that the White House
unsuccessfully asked Sen. Larry Craig not
to bring up AgJOBS, apparently fearing
election-year controversy.
Once again,
politicians are finding reasons to delay
improvements in the way this country
treats farmworkers. The time for
excuses is over. President Bush,
without delay, should tell Congress to
debate and vote on AgJOBS.
Bruce Goldstein, an
attorney, is co-executive director of the
Farmworker Justice Fund, an advocacy
organization in Washington, D.C. For
more information, see www.fwjustice.org .
_______________________________________________
Bruce Goldstein
is with the Farmworker Justice Fund, Inc.
www.fwjustice.org
He may be contacted at: fjf@nclr.org.
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