Thread: Labor program trains farmworkers effectively

Labor program trains farmworkers effectively

David Strauss, Executive Director,Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs - Washington

USA TODAY's article "Budget office seen shifting gears" misleads readers about a Department of Labor program that trains migrant and seasonal farmworkers for new jobs (News, Tuesday).

Not only does the article report that the National Farmworker Jobs Program was deemed ineffective and suffered from poor performance, but it also reports claims that the services provided by NFJP can be found elsewhere.

Reading these claims, one would think that the reporter was a spokesman for former Labor secretary Elaine Chao. During the Bush administration, Chao tried to kill job training programs for America's most vulnerable workers.

But because the National Farmworker Jobs Program was, and continues to be, one of the Department of Labor's most effective programs, Congress has consistently voted to keep the program alive.

Based on performance standards that the Department of Labor uses to evaluate a job training program's success, NFJP is one of its most successful programs. And while the unemployment rate keeps increasing every month, member organizations of the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs continue to place thousands of migrant and seasonal farmworkers and/or their dependents into good paying jobs with benefits.

All of the farmworkers who receive job training assistance from the National Farmworker Jobs Program are U.S. citizens or have the proper documentation to be in the country.

NFJP grantees use a model that is very different from other job training assistance programs. Because of the needs of their customers, job training service providers do extensive outreach into the migrant and seasonal farmworker communities. They have extended hours, personal relationships with employers and are fully bilingual.

It has been suggested that other job training service providers should use the NFJP model as a best practice and adopt the model to achieve greater success.

Posted at 12:09 AM/ET, June 01, 2009 in Letter to the editor

http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2009/06/ ... .html#more

All of the farmworkers who receive job training assistance from the National Farmworker Jobs Program are U.S. citizens or have the proper documentation to be in the country.

If this program REALLY only trains farmworkers in the country legally, and if they REALLY verify the documentation, I commend them.