Thread: POLL: Push resumes for AgJobs bill to allow farmworker illeg

POLL: Push resumes for AgJobs bill to allow farmworker illegals to stay

By TRACY X. MIGUEL
Naples Daily News
Posted July 10, 2010 at 4:30 p.m., updated July 10, 2010 at 4:55 p.m.

http://www.naplesnews.com/news/2010/jul ... -illegals/

NAPLES — In the heat of immigration debate across the nation, growers and farmworker advocates are pressing for passage of the federal legislation known as Agjobs.

The bill, which has been on the brink of passage several times, continues to have widespread support from agricultural groups, farmworker advocates and religious organizations across the state.

Rob Williams, director of the Florida-based Migrant Farmworker Justice Project of Florida Legal Services, said the AgJobs bill would have strong impact in the state, the nation’s secondÂ*-largest agricultural economy, after California.

“Without farmworkers, Florida would lose billions of dollars,â€

Poll: Should Congress pass AgJobs bill?

Thanks for your vote.

RESPONSE PERCENT VOTES
No, don't reward illegals

75% 41
Yes, we need the farmworkers

18% 10
Blanket amnesty instead

5% 3
Don't care

0% 0
Can see both sides of argument

0% 0
total votes: 54

Psalm 139:14

As soon as you legalize them most will not stick around on the farm, they will be off to seek other opportunities. Then the cycle starts all over again.

Originally Posted by NoBueno

As soon as you legalize them most will not stick around on the farm, they will be off to seek other opportunities. Then the cycle starts all over again.

Exactly, I know a lot of farmers who don't care about or want the legalization part, they just want a quicker way to hire foreign temp workers legally.

The United Farmworkers is not an NLRB recognized bargaining unit. It is essentially a clandestine organization outside of the protection of federal collective bargaining laws.

Poll: Should Congress pass AgJobs bill?

Thanks for your vote.

No, don't reward illegals 76% 169

Yes, we need the farmworkers 14% 31

Can see both sides of argument 5% 13

Blanket amnesty instead 2% 6

Don't care 0% 2

total votes: 221


We have an excellent "third choice" between Ag-Jobs and continuing with our present legal Temporary Workers in Agriculture (H-2A) Visas Program, which U.S. farmers say is unnecessarily cumberson and expensive for them to use to bring in enough foreign workers each year:

Please petition your congressional representatives to reform our H-2A Visas program along the lines of Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Workers Porgram (SAWP) - link below - which evidently has worked successfully for decades/ Under SAWP, the Canadian government contracts directly with other foreign governments, primarily that of Mexico, for seasonal agricultural workers. The foreign governments themselves select the seasonal workers from their country who will participate in the program each year. Canada inspects the operations of the farmers before they certify them as qualified employers, and guarantees all the workers' labor rights and full payment of their wages in Canada. At the end of their employment, all the seasonal agricultural workers are transported directly back to their home countries. (by Air Canada, I think). This eliminates the requirements which U.S. farmers face of 1) having to advertise extensively domestic workers before hiring temporary foreign national workers; and 2) being responsible for personally locating, contracting with, and transporting temporary foreign national workers to and from their home countries to their farms/orchards, etc..

Both Canadian planter/growers and the workers themselves are satisfied with the SAWP program, and the question of giving such workers resident status in Canada plays no part of it. Nor do we hear of Canadian crops "rotting in fields" because there are not enough laborers to harvest them, or that Canadian farmers "cannot compete" on the international agricultural market unless they receive more foreign labor.

http://www.hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/workplaceski ... sawp.shtml

This is just another form of amnesty