Why Guestworker Programs Are Inherently Problematic

Written by Bruce Goldstein Tuesday, 09 March 2010 23:22

Once employers get guestworkers, addiction sets in.  With no right to switch jobs, no right to remain in the country beyond the job term, and coming from a poor country where wages are very low, guestworkers will usually be highly productive at wages that are very low by U.S. standards.  So even when U.S. workers face high unemployment and desperately seek work in agriculture, the growers still say that U.S. workers are lazy and don't want these jobs.  The Daily Sentinel in Grand Junction, Coloradao, on March 5, published a story entitled;  "Demand high for orchard jobs: Ads draw big response for seasonal farm work."  The article reported on a grower's observation that a large number of local workers had returned to look for agricultural work recently and his reaction:

"One of the area's largest fruit growers, Talbott Farms, 3782 F 1/4 Road, received 400 to 500 walk-in requests for employment this year, co-owner Bruce Talbott said. The company hires about 120 people a year. "We got guys that came in here and say, ‘I worked here 15 years ago. Do you have any work for me?'" he said. "They're roofers, concrete guys, landscapers, all kinds of people who have been laid off from the trade industry."  The H-2A "workers are "highly reliable," Talbott said. Local job seekers are usually unaccustomed to the hard work that farm work entails, he said. And local workers are much more likely to quit midseason, or often, after only a day. H-2A workers have incentives to be here, do good work, stay out of trouble and make money to support their families in their home countries, Talbott said. They also know the farm well and "know the difference between putting in time and being an efficient employee," he said. "My very best guys are in the H-2A program," Talbott said. "They don't want to commit to a vehicle. They know they're safe here, and there's a lot less stress than trying to run the border."

The U.S. Department of Labor should not approve an H-2A application when three times as many workers apply for work as there are jobs. The employers must be required to comply with the law: U.S. workers must be offered the job and the job terms must be equal or exceed the wages and working conditions of the U.S. labor market.

 

Agriculture: Where All Employers Pay Below the Average Wage

Written by Bruce Goldstein Friday, 26 February 2010 14:40

This news article from Highlands Today in Central Florida has a relatively extensive discussion of the pros and cons of the H-2A program regulatory changes that Secretary Solis has made, effective March 15.  The article also reveals the growers' innate feeling of entitlement to exemption from the marketplace. The H-2A program, under the rules in place since 1987 until Bush changed them in early 2009, and under the Solis regulations, requires employers to pay the average wage paid to farmworkers in the state as determined by USDA farm labor surveys. The growers say they can't afford it.

How did the average wage get to be the average wage? It's the reverse of Lake Woebegone, where are all the children are "above average." In agriculture, everyone somehow pays below the average.
"Changes may cost farmers but boost worker wages," Highlands Today, Feb. 26, 2010.

New Congressional Bill to Protect Child Farmworkers

Written by Alexandra Rosenblatt Wednesday, 24 February 2010 12:56

Maria Mandujano began working as child farmworker in Idaho at the age of 11. Now 19, she is a college student and activist with Student Action with Farmworkers. While many children went to summer camp, the beach or on family vacations, Mandujano worked 13 hours shifts in temperatures hovering around 100 degrees. She was never trained in the hazards of pesticides. She stated they never even mentioned the use of pesticides; they simply told them they would be "watering." Despite the heat, she wore baggy long sleeve shirts and pants to avoid sexual harassment from supervisors and other workers. She said it was no secret she was working alongside children as young as 8 years old.

Norma Flores grew up in a migrant farmworking family in Texas and began working in the fields at age 12. She is now the Children in the Fields Project Director for the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs . She told of leaving town before school got out in June so her family could migrate to Iowa, Indiana, or Michigan to work in the fields and did not return until well after the first day of school in September. When she finally returned to school, she found she could not write because of blisters on her hands from working without gloves and using tools that were too big for her child-sized hands.

Maria and Norma told thier stories in a briefing on a bill introduced by Representative Lucille Roybal-Allard (D-CA) called the Children's Act for Responsible Employment, HR 3564.

Despite our nation's alleged commitment to ending child labor in this country and abroad, we have almost all together ignored the hundreds of thousands of children who are laboring in the fields across this country to pick the fruits and vegetables we eat every day. This is because most child labor laws exempt agricultural work. Panelist Zama Coursen-Neff, deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Children Rights Division, explained that unlike the protections guaranteed to most workers under the Fair Labor Standard Acts, there are no limits on the number of hours children can work in agricultural jobs outside of school hours. Because of the failure to regulate the work of child farmworkers, many children are working for wages well below the minimum requirements. Coursen-Neff stated that children are four times as likely to die from pesticide exposure and nearly one half of all child farmworkers do not graduate high school.

Panlist U Roberto Romano, an award winning filmmaker who presented the trailer to his new film, "The Harvest," stated that most child farmworkers are "American citizens, who because of our failure, were not covered under the Fair Labor Standards Act" and that as a result we have created a situation in which we have some of the "worst forms of child labor than anywhere in the world."

Children's Act for Responsible Employment, HR 3564 would address the inequities and harsh conditions faced by child farmworkers. Find out if your representative supports this important piece of legislation by visiting the action alert page on the Human Rights Watch website [note: this page does not display in the Firefox browser, only Internet Explorer].

 

California Farm Jobs Remarkably Stable in Down Economy

Written by Bruce Goldstein Monday, 22 February 2010 15:39

The Los Angeles Times reports that the number of California agricultural jobs declined only by half a percent despite large percentage declines of employment in other California industries in the last year. Water shortages on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley did reduce employment in that area. But initial estimates of large numbers (80,000) of lost jobs due to water-shortage losses proved incorrect (the number was about 21,000).

So, the LA Times in an article concludes, "crop and labor statistics for 2009 belie the image of a withering farm economy teetering on the edge of collapse."

The article reports that there is still high unemployment in many of these rural California areas, however, especially since many laid-off construction workers returned to the fields to find work.