Thread: Effects of e-verify worries agriculture industry

Effects of e-verify worries agriculture industry
Published: 6:42 pm
Updated: 7:05 pm

Farmers and agriculture leaders have been fretting for weeks over a bill, which would require business to use E-Verify - a federal database used to check an employee's legal status.

The bill introduced in June by Texas Republican is supported by some conservatives who say illegals take jobs from Americans, but growers say they're caught in the middle.

"We are obviously all for enforcement of the immigration laws, but the implementation of E-Verify without some sort of concession for the California agriculture business could be devastating for our business and for the economy here in California," Sara Oliver, Dir. Human Resources of Grimmway Farms, said.

At Grimmway Farms in Arvin thousands of skilled farm workers pick and pack produce each day. The company said they would be hard to replace.

"People that are legal in this country don't want to do this job, but people like me are here to work," Daniel Rosales, Grimmway Farms employee, said.

"This is the worker that is picking your fruit, your vegetable, that you are buying from the supermarket every single day," Armando Elenes, United Farm Workers Union, said.

Without workers to harvest the produce, some consumers worry prices may go up.

"I know they will go up, but for me that's okay," said one local shopper. "For others they will worry."

The bill offers some concessions to agriculture. It gives farmers three years to phase in E-Verify and access to a new guest worker program, but even that isn't economically viable for many farms.

"The real solution is to deal with the current workforce by legalizing the workforce that is here, where 60 percent, 70 percent, 80 percent of the workforce is undocumented," Elenes said.

"We're hoping for something that will take care of experienced skilled workers that we have now, but will also implement something so in the future we will have a steady workforce we can use," Oliver said.

Others look to the proposed bill as a way to control illegal immigration. There is no telling when Congress will take it up. For now, it remains a growing debate.

http://www.kget.com/news/local/story/Ef ... 6zKPw.cspx

"The real solution is to deal with the current workforce by legalizing the workforce that is here, where 60 percent, 70 percent, 80 percent of the workforce is undocumented," Elenes said.

Oh yeah and once they're legal they won't work the fields either for the low wages. These farmers/agribusiness owners know the day is coming when they'll have to adjust to either mechanization or pay better wages but in the meantime they want to squeeze out every penny of profit they can under the current circumstances. Even though they know many of those pennies come from taxpayers!