The fate of the nation's farm workers is again at the center of immigration and labor legislation in Washington. Again, these invaluable workers are getting a raw deal. The big difference this time is that most farm worker advocacy organizations have compromised with lawmakers and growers on policies they traditionally have rejected.
At issue is the Agricultural Jobs, Opportunity, Benefits and Security Act of 2003 ("AgJOBS"), sponsored by Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, and Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah. Major farm worker groups supporting the bill include the United Farm Workers of America, the Farm Labor Organizing Committee and the Farmworker Justice Fund Inc. Two Democrats, Sen. Edward Kennedy and Rep. Howard Berman, are advising the farm worker groups and support the bill.
The legislation, consisting of two parts, is complex: Part one is a "legalization" or "earned adjustment" program that will give undocumented farm workers temporary immigration status followed by earned permanent resident immigration status after workers complete additional agricultural employment during the next three to six years. Part two is the H-2A agricultural guest worker program that allows growers to hire foreign workers on temporary nonimmigrant visas based on claims of labor shortages. The sponsors say the new legislation will fix the abuses of a similar bill proposed in 1998.
Although the formula for gaining legalization consists of several "work day" requirements, farm worker advocates are willing to give the legislation a chance. Critics, however, are less sanguine. They worry that without impartial watchdogs, growers and their field bosses will have too much discretion in documenting how long and when workers were employed.
Even though a legal procedure for determining work day status is written into the bill, critics worry that, as has been done previously, labor and immigration officials will not enforce the rules.
A temporary worker who is fired without "just cause," for example, could file an administrative complaint with the feds to earn credit toward the work requirement for the days that he improperly lost. Workers injured on the job also should get credit for lost work days. Some longtime advocates argue that the majority of farm workers, foreigners who are trying to please their U.S. bosses to earn legal status, will be afraid to file complaints.
Again, many advocates are willing to live with this part of the bill because, as one UFW leader said: "At least the law will be on the books. We might get lucky and persuade somebody to enforce it once in a while."
The guest worker portion of the legislation is clearly more problematic for advocates who support the bill, primarily because this provision perpetuates the lie that farm workers are in short supply. Like its 1998 predecessor, AgJOBS 2003 is designed to help farmers hire tens of thousands of temporary foreign workers to cultivate and harvest crops despite government evidence showing that such workers are unnecessary.
In Florida, the nation's citrus belt and major winter vegetable producer, farmers will continue to enjoy a limitless supply of cheap labor. If this legislation passes, all competitive incentives to improve wages and benefits for farm workers will be removed.
The bottom line, according to the General Accounting Office, is that the United States has an ample supply of farm workers. The latest guest worker provision perpetuates the myth that because farm work is backbreaking and dirty, Americans citizens will not do such work.
The truth, of course, is that Americans do all sorts of tough, dirty, seasonal work - laying asphalt on highways, mining coal, roofing in 100-plus-degree weather, constructing skyscrapers. The secret is that these jobs usually pay well and offer benefits that everyone, other than farm workers, takes for granted.
American agricultural practices defy traditional economic theory: When labor is in short supply, wages increase. In the farming industry - where owners claim a shortage of labor - wages have fallen or remained stagnant for the last 25 years.
Bruce Goldstein, an attorney and co-executive director of the Washington-based Farmworker Justice Fund, generally supports AgJOBS, but he has serious concerns with the H-2A provision. He is especially worried that the bill leaves farm workers without any meaningful collective bargaining power.
In a prepared statement, he said: "The mere fact of holding legal status does not guarantee that farm workers' wages and working conditions will improve; nor does legal status eliminate the discrimination that agricultural workers continue to face in federal and state labor laws. Government and employers should take steps to stabilize this work force by making agricultural work more attractive and productive.
"With a large number of legal-immigrant farm workers in the country, there should be no need for H-2A guest workers during the several years after the legalization program begins. The changes to the H-2A guest worker program necessitate great vigilance on the part of the farm worker advocates and government agencies to prevent unscrupulous employers from taking advantage of vulnerable guest workers."
Perhaps parts of the new bill will improve the plight of farm workers. Invariably, however, efforts to help farm workers show that legislation alone cannot force agricultural employers to be fair. The time has come to drag these rich, unscrupulous growers and their field bosses into court for their noncompliance with previous laws. Conditions for farm workers will not change until their abusers are prosecuted, fined and sent to prison.
