Thread: CA:Employers look to Obama to Deliver on Immig. Promise

Employers look to Obama to deliver on immigration promise

sferriss@sacbee.com
Published Monday, Dec. 15, 2008

In the green folds of the Capay Valley, the scene at Full Belly Farm isn't that different from countless other California businesses with immigrant workers on their payrolls.

Everybody is hunkered down, thankful to have work – in this case, growing organic vegetables – and praying the economy improves with the coming Barack Obama administration's stimulus plans.

Once a promised middle class recovery is under way, Full Belly co-owner Judith Redmond said, business owners hope Obama will turn to immigration overhaul, as he also promised. It's a lightning rod issue, but they contend the problem needs to be confronted if the California and the U.S. economies are to have enough legal workers to meet long-term needs.

"It's about recognizing that we need this work force. We're not going to make this all go away," Redmond said.

She employs about 50 year-round, mostly Mexican workers and is president of the Davis-based Community Alliance with Family Farmers.

Lori Wolf, a Modesto landscaper, added that immigration change "is just not something that can be swept under the rug again. It's very important to a lot of people, especially in California."

Jim Abram, president of the California Hotel and Lodging Association in Sacramento, said his members also are eager for bipartisan talk on immigration.

"This is really a critical, critical issue – to have a stable work force that's not always living underground," Abram said.

For now, he said, the recession has halted the hospitality industry's almost chronic search for employees. But "this country's economy, once it gets back on its feet, will not be able to function without immigrant labor," he said.

Abram's is a controversial view, but it is shared by some labor union leaders and a number of economists and policymakers in Washington, D.C.

Business leaders acknowledge, however, that a staggering rise in unemployment hurts the chances of changing federal immigration policies anytime soon.

Obama's position on immigration, however, and some of his choices for his Cabinet and White House staff give reform advocates reasons for optimism.

During his presidential campaign, Obama frequently said he believed opening an earned path to legal status – with some hurdles – seemed the only sensible way to address an accumulation of millions of undocumented workers and family members here.

Obama's choice for Homeland Security secretary, Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano, has agreed with that view.

She called for the National Guard to be deployed along the Mexican border in Arizona as an emergency measure. But she also shares businesses' position that foreign workers are needed to fill shortages and that federal policies need to be enacted to better provide for that.

New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, Obama's pick for commerce secretary, is Latino, understands Mexico, where he spent part of his childhood, and has views on immigration similar to Napolitano's.

Businesses are also celebrating Obama's choice for White House director of intergovernmental affairs. Cecilia Muñoz, an activist with the National Council of La Raza, has been a leading voice urging labor, business and rights groups to join together in pressing for immigration change.

Muñoz has also been a vocal critic of recent workplace raids and other "enforcement only" measures the Bush administration initiated last year.

Numbers USA and other groups promise, however, to keep pressure on the Obama administration. They want to reduce immigration and they oppose legalizing undocumented workers. They've argued that even before the downturn, there were enough Americans to fill job vacancies.

Businesses and labor unions have said they want Obama to temper workplace crackdowns, for now. But they also support greater enforcement of work document requirements – once the system is "modernized" to include visas for migrants to fill proven labor shortages.

Congress failed to change the visa system in 1986, an omission reform advocates say set the stage for an increase in undocumented workers.

The voluntary E-Verify computer system now available to check documents is relatively new and still flawed, businesses also say. Moreover, federal regulations do not allow employers to use E-Verify to check the IDs of employees who were already on the payroll before employers signed up to use the database.

While some employers have exploited lax rules and enforcement to hire cheaper illegal immigrants, trade groups admit, others have followed the law to the letter, hiring people who had the necessary identification.

Redmond, who said she believes "employers do have to take responsibility for hiring a legal work force," said her workers have provided documents. Some have been with her for as long as 15 years and have established roots in local towns. Their pay starts above the minimum and includes bonuses.

"I don't think we can find an indigenous labor force for this work," she said. "And I don't think it's the pay."

Economist Stephen Levy, director of the Center for Continuing Study of the California Economy, said a need for immigrant labor is a sign of progress for native-born Americans.

"If you're a middle class African American family, is your dying dream that your daughter clean rooms at the Marriott?" Levy said. "I think many people are OK with immigrants in entry-level jobs."

In August, speaking before a state Senate subcommittee on immigration, Levy warned that California faces a "tidal wave" of baby boom retirements. The state needs to be able to count on immigrants as one of the sources for replacing a deficit of workers of all skill levels, he said.

In 2006, Levy noted, there were not enough unemployed Californians to fill all jobs that would be vacated if every illegal immigrant were fired, even if geographic location, skill levels and pay demands were matched.

Today, he said, even as unemployment rises, he wouldn't change his predictions for California's future labor needs and how immigration should help fill the gap.

"I haven't seen any Wall Street bank employees bumping out Mexican farmworkers yet," he said. "Right now, there is no demand in any part of the economy. But that doesn't mean that's going to be true tomorrow."

Call The Bee's Susan Ferriss, (916) 321-1267.

http://www.sacbee.com/101/story/1473762.html

More whining from the cheap labor lobby. They're addicted to cheap labor like addicts are to heroin, and it's time they kick the habit.

Do these employers even think about WHO is going to BUY their products? Many American families are doing without fresh fruits & vegetables because so many have lost their jobs.

But hey! They need the cheap labor so their produce can rot in grocery stores, instead of in the fields.

12-20 million illegals americans unemployed those no longer on the unemployed list (still unemployed) those working part time because they cant find full time,this works out to over 20 million. California wants more of what has already bankrupted them!