Liberal Democrats Seem To Have Moved Guest Ag-Worker Rules In Right Direction

By Roy Beck, Thursday, February 11, 2010, 11:13 PM EST - posted on NumbersUSA

The liberal Democratic impulse seems to have moved the Obama Administration to make some good decisions in reversing Bush Administration rules for temporary foreign agricultural workers.

An Associated Press report on the new Obama regulations states that they will:


require growers to make a greater effort to offer their crop-picking jobs to legal immigrants and U.S. citizens already in this country

mandate that jobs be posted on an electronic registry to more widely publicize jobs to U.S. workers

increases the minimum wage for the foreign workers by about a dollar an hour


I haven't had a chance to see a full analysis of all the rule changes, but my first inclination is to say bravo, bravo and bravo to the Obama Administration.

At the end of the Bush Administration, it had issued new regulations to make it easier for growers to bring in foreign labor and to pay them less.

Unions and other liberal groups howled that the rules would further disadvantage some of the most vulnerable workers in America just because giant business lobbying groups had the power to do it.

The liberal impulse has been just right on this immigration issue.

. . . labor and immigrant rights groups claimed the Bush administration regulations had the effect of depressing wages and made it harder for domestic workers to apply for the jobs.

-- Associated Press, "Labor Dept reverses Bush-era regulations on seasonal foreign farm workers" by Sam Hananel, 11FEB2010

The labor and immigrant rights groups -- which usually are our opponents on immigration issues -- are making the point we always make about importing foreign labor, whether permanently or temporarily:

When you increase the supply of labor in an occupation, you lower the value of labor which depresses wages and especially disadvantages the U.S. workers who already are in that occupation.

(The changes reflect the administration's commitment) to providing fair wages and strong labor protections for the most vulnerable groups of workers.

-- Labor Secretary Hilda Solis

(The rules) restore some protection against employers that would like to hire cheap foreign labor.

-- Bruce Goldstein, executive director of Farmworker Justice

AP noted that the Bush administration had responded to pressure from the growers to loosen the H-2A visa rules which they claimed were so time-consuming that farmers sometimes had to let crops rot in the fields because they couldn't find enough workers at harvest time. AP stated that the new rules would retain some of the efforts to streamline processing times, "but not enough to satisfy growers."

NumbersUSA has never been able to validate the claims of widespread "crops rotting in fields."

But NumbersUSA has had some sympathy for the growers' complaints about needless red-tape and delays in the H-2A program. (By the way, there is no limit on how many foreign workers any grower can bring through the H-2A program.)

We advocate a process that is vigorous in posting job openings on the internet for all domestic unemployment offices and job placement organizations to use with ease. We favor a pre-approval process of foreign workers in their home country so that when a grower is short-handed even three days before harvest it will be possible to engage contract-labor companies which will be able to notify and transport the foreign labor to the farm in time for the harvest.

But the H-2A program should always be the last resort.

Every major study of ag work has found that U.S. citizens and legal immigrant farmworkers in this country do not get nearly enough hours of work during the year. In fact, the studies find, the U.S. tends to have a surplus of farmworkers (who disproportionately are foreign born) who lack good systems for placing them in available jobs when they open up.

I don't know about you but I really don't want to feel guilty every time I sit down to eat, thinking that my food has been provided in part by farm workers who are paid poverty wages and kept in a peasant status. Various studies have suggested that the hourly pay for field workers could be DOUBLED without raising our prices at the supermarket by more than 5%.

I say that wages and working conditions in the fields should be whatever it takes to fill the jobs with domestic labor. Why should we expect any job in America to pay less than an American wage at less than American working conditions.

Some spokesmen for the growers claim that higher wages will force them to cease producing certain crops (which will have to be grown in other countries) and switch to different crops. I don't see the harm in that. The farmers will still be working their land and making money off it. But they will be doing so with crops that don't require impoverished workers who depend on taxpayers to provide for most of their needs.

As long as the H-2A visa provides the ability of a grower to procure foreign labor in just a few days in case of an emergency, the Obama idea of providing more pressure to find domestic workers who will be earning a better livelihood seems great to me.

http://www.numbersusa.com/content/nusab ... ght-direct

ROY BECK is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA

Views and opinions expressed in blogs on this website are those of the author. They do not necessarily reflect official policies of NumbersUSA.

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AP story cited above at:
http://www.alipac.us/ftopicp-1016835.html#1016835

Also related:
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-188099-farm.html