Hiring foreign farmworkers to get tougher under new rule

[Jeanfromfillmore]

Hiring foreign farmworkers to get tougher under new rule
Growers must try harder to find Americans to fill the temporary and seasonal harvest jobs, starting next month.
In a move that is sure to have the agriculture industry grimacing and labor-rights advocates cheering, the Labor Department is reversing a Bush administration rule that allowed farmers an easier path to hiring temporary or seasonal foreign workers.

The department has issued new regulations that will require growers to take more steps to try to find Americans to fill jobs picking crops and other harvest-time roles, as well as increase pay and provide more job-safety protections for the thousands of foreign farmworkers they do hire.

The old rule, which affected the H-2A guest-worker program, was adopted shortly before President George W. Bush left office. The Labor Department suspended that regulation in May.

The new rule, slated to take effect March 15, will increase the average pay for temporary farmworkers by nearly a dollar per hour. Farmers also will be required to list their job openings on a new online job registry, and state workforce agencies must inspect worker housing before employers can get the nod to hire foreign laborers.

Department officials said Thursday that the changes were designed to protect the agriculture industry's most at-risk workers.

"This new rule will make it possible for all workers who are working hard on American soil to receive fair pay while at the same time expand opportunities for U.S. workers," Labor Secretary Hilda L. Solis said in a statement. "The actions that we have taken through this rule-making also will enable us to detect and remedy different forms of worker violations."

Even when unemployment rates are high, finding temporary or seasonal workers remains a concern for the agriculture industry. During fiscal 2009, employers filed 8,150 labor certification applications requesting 103,955 H-2A workers for temporary agricultural work. The Labor Department certified 94% of the applications, for a total of 86,014 workers.

The Bush-era rule, which let employers hire foreign workers if they couldn't find Americans to fill the jobs, sparked a fierce battle across the country's farmlands. Labor advocacy groups railed against the rule for slashing wages and weakening worker safety rules.

Farmers have said they need help easing the hurdles to bring in foreign workers to harvest crops, saying U.S. workers don't want those jobs and refuse to take them. Farm groups have spent months fighting the Obama administration's efforts to curtail or modify the rule.

Last year a group of growers associations -- including the National Christmas Tree Assn., the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Assn. and more than a dozen others -- filed suit against the Labor and Homeland Security departments, alleging that they could be unfairly prosecuted for labor law violations.

p.j.huffstutter@ latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-f...,1508532.story

[Rim05]

When we were having the protests at the Simi Valley church, a Caucasian woman stopped to say she was glad to see us there. She said she went to the strawberry farms in the area to pick strawberries but the Hispanic workers complained to the bosses that they did not want her there. She was denied work. I wonder how many times that happens. Even those farm workers feel the ag jobs belong to Hispanics. They want and feel they should have EVERYTHING except the taxes.

[REWHBLCAIN]

Leahy irked by farm bill
Plans to push legislation on foreign dairy workers
By Howard Weiss Tisman
The Brattleboro Reformer (VT), February 12, 2010
http://www.reformer.com/localnews/ci_14386851

Brattleboro, VT -- Migrant workers who are illegally working on dairy farms all over Vermont will be forced to continue living under the radar after the U.S. Labor Department failed to address their status in the new rule on seasonal agricultural workers.

The Labor Department on Thursday announced new rules about the H-2A program, which allows farmers to hire foreign laborers for seasonal work.

The Obama administration said the new rules will strengthen worker protections by increasing wages and improving job safety, reversing the Bush administration rule that labor and immigrant rights groups opposed.

Dairy workers, who spend all year on the farm, have never been included in the H-2A program and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has been urging the Labor Department to allow them into the program.

He submitted comments to the Labor Department last year while the new rule was under consideration

'I am deeply disappointed with the Department of Labor's final rule on H-2A agricultural workers,' Leahy said Thursday after the Labor Department's new rule was released. 'This rule falls short, leaving dairy farms in the lurch.'

It is estimated that there are between 1,500 and 2,000 people from Mexico and other countries working on farms in Vermont.

Many of them are here illegally and the threat of a federal crackdown adds to the already challenging times facing dairy farmers.

In November, federal agents raided a number of farms around Vermont as part of nationwide sweep to investigate alleged immigration and labor violations in the agriculture industry.

'With the dairy industry reeling in Vermont and across the nation, the final rule continues to exclude the dairy industry from lawfully hiring seasonal foreign workers when needed,' Leahy said.

The Labor Department said it did not have the legal authority to include the entire dairy industry in the H-2A visa program, though Leahy said Congress 'clearly gave the Secretary (of Labor) authority to define agricultural labor and services through regulation.'

Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the most senior member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, promised to introduce legislation that would allow dairy workers to obtain the H-2A visas.

Leahy wants the migrant dairy workers to be allowed in the country for a year, and then be eligible for additional one year periods as approved by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Workers would be able to petition to become U.S. citizens after three years, under Leahy's proposed bill.

Vermont Secretary of Agriculture Roger Allbee also weighed in last year when the new rule was being written.

Allbee, and top agriculture officials from around the Northeast, said the foreign workers were crucial to the region's dairy industry and said the industry could collapse without them.

On Thursday, Allbee said he was disappointed that the new rule did nothing to address the problem that forces Vermont dairy farmers to break federal immigration rules every time they bring an undocumented foreign worker on to the farm

'We hoped the Labor Department would recognize that dairy farmers need help,' Allbee said. 'We think their decision is unreasonable and can't be easily explained.'

Sheep farmers in the West are allowed to use the H-2A visa program to hire year-round workers and the Labor Department even went as far as to include logging into the new rule.

Allbee has met with top government officials, as well as with agriculture leaders from around the country, and while everyone agrees that there is a problem there does not seem to be a simple solution.

Immigration policy is highly charged, Allbee said, and it is extremely hard to get Congress to agree on any kind of immigration reform.

U.S Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is scheduled to make his first visit to Vermont this weekend and Allbee said the foreign worker issue is sure to be discussed.

'Everyone knows the workers are here illegally but without them our food system would be severely hindered,' Allbee said. 'I have conversations with people at the highest level who say they want to address this but there doesn't seem to be any easy way to solve it.'

U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis said the new rule protects both migrant workers and American farm workers.

The new rule ensures that U.S workers in the same occupation, working for the same employer, receive no less than the same wage as foreign workers and it requires farmers to make a greater effort to hire American workers before bringing in labor from outside the country.

'This new rule will make it possible for all workers who are working hard on American soil to receive fair pay while at the same time expand opportunities for U.S. workers,' Solis said. 'The actions that we have taken through this rulemaking will also enable us to detect and remedy different forms of worker violations.'

The new rule goes into effect on March 15.

+++

Leahy plans legislation on foreign dairy workers
The Associated Press, February 11, 2010
http://www.wcax.com/Global/story.asp?S=11971246

[REWHBLCAIN]

Rules Tighten on Foreign Farm Workers
By Melanie Trottman and Miriam Jordan
The Wall Street Journal, February 12, 2010
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1000...p_editorsPicks

U.S. farmers will find it harder to get visas for foreign workers under a new Labor Department rule issued Thursday.

Growers estimate that the vast majority of field workers are foreign-born, although only a fraction of those—86,000 in the last fiscal year—received visas under the program affected by the new rule.

Groups representing growers said the rule would complicate their search for workers to harvest crops, and called for Congress to overhaul farm labor laws. Unions applauded the decision, which had been telegraphed last fall.

Under the new rule, effective March 15, employers seeking H-2A visas for agricultural workers will be required to provide documented proof that they looked for qualified U.S. people to fill jobs, instead of simply attesting to the effort. The Labor Department also is creating a national electronic job registry to help growers find workers from the U.S.

The department is also set soon to issue new guidelines for determining minimum wages at employers seeking to participate in the visa program. It said it took the action after wages for legal immigrant workers in the program fell following a change to the formula by the Bush Administration. The Labor Department said the average certified wage for H-2A workers has fallen to $8.02 an hour from $9.04 for fiscal year 2009 applications processed before the Bush rule change.

The Labor Department actions reverse changes in farm-labor regulation enacted by the Bush administration in late 2008.

They come as President Barack Obama faces growing pressure from union leaders dismayed by setbacks to their agenda, including a Senate vote this week that blocked the nomination of former Service Employees International Union lawyer Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board. The leaders have suggested that unions—traditionally big backers of Democratic candidates—might sit out November's congressional elections unless the administration does more to deliver on promises to more strongly enforce labor laws.

The White House, in the aftermath of Mr. Becker's defeat, has sought to reassure union leaders that it 'will work with our allies and with Congress to help restore balance to the federal government on behalf of working people.'

The rule issued Thursday 'is a great victory for all farm workers,' said Arturo Rodriguez, president of the United Farm Workers of America.

Tom Nassif, chief executive of Western Growers, an association that represents farmers in California and Arizona, said the new rules didn't address the problems farmers face finding seasonal help.

'Even with an economy that is suffering through 10% unemployment, domestic workers are not applying for these jobs,' Mr. Nassif said. 'We know our produce is going to be harvested by foreign workers. The question is: Will it be here in the U.S. or will it be abroad?'

Craig Regelbrugge, vice president of government relations for ANLA, an association representing nurseries, said the current H-2A program for guest workers needed to be overhauled by Congress. Employers complain that the H-2A program is costly, bureaucratic and inflexible. Farm workers on H-2A visas fill only about 2% to 3% of U.S. seasonal farm jobs, mostly in the fruit, vegetable, nursery and Christmas tree sectors, he said.

In recent years the H-2A program has become more widely used by nursery and greenhouse growers, as authorities have cracked down on illegal immigration.

[REWHBLCAIN]

New Guest-Worker Rules Seek to Increase Wages
By Julia Preston
The New York Times, February 12, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/12/us/12farm.html

[Jeanfromfillmore]

These are strawberry farms, which are one of the most labor intensive crops to grow. Why do they have so many strawberry crops being grown today? Answer: they are the most profitable because the labor is such a small part of the cost of marketing because our tax dollars subsidize the labor for these growers. But these growers just can't get enough of that cheep labor, now they're using young children. This is up in Oregon where they can't use the excuse that it's over 100 degrees in the sun. No, these growers are exploiting everything and anything to get that cheep labor and see the largest profits.

Berry Farms Fined For Hiring Kids As Young As 6
PORTLAND, Ore. (Associated Press) -- The U.S. Labor Department has fined three Washington state strawberry farms a total of $73,000 for employing children as young as 6 years old as pickers.
The department's Portland, Ore., office says Thursday the violations include failing to maintain proof-of-age records and pay minimum wage. A total of nine underage workers were found during a child labor investigation in June at farms in Woodland, Wash., and Ridgefield, Wash.
The department says all three employers removed the underage workers and agreed to attend wage and hour training for the next three years.

[StokeyBob]

Hiring foreign farmworkers to get tougher under new rule

They would be in dire straights trying to figure ways to make it easier. :-)

[Commander Bunny]

http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article...for-worker-law

Here's another tear-jerker from the North Bay area..

"Casimiro Alvarez, regional director of the United Farm Workers, estimated about 70 percent of Sonoma County’s agriculture workers are undocumented"

".Dutton, whose family farms more than 1,000 acres of vineyards in west Sonoma County, said his business uses the H-2A avenue to hire 40 to 45 farmworkers a year. The current process under the Obama administration, he said, is inefficient.

He said he must go to the U.S.-Mexican border to petition for each worker as well as advertise the position in three states to ensure potential American workers are not overlooked.

“Once the guys get visas, we have to provide transportation to get them up here, free housing; we have to guarantee they’re going to work three-quarters of the hours we offer, and if for some reason they don’t work that much, we have to pay them for the hours,” he said.

Advertise in 3 other states to make sure Americans have a chance at the work?...will they get the free transportation, housing and other perks given to a Mexican?....I highly doubt it, beside a typical rental in that area is over $1,000/month, way more than an American working for these slavers could ever dream of affording to pay.

[Twoller]

Originally Posted by Commander Bunny

....

Advertise in 3 other states to make sure Americans have a chance at the work?...will they get the free transportation, housing and other perks given to a Mexican?....I highly doubt it, beside a typical rental in that area is over $1,000/month, way more than an American working for these slavers could ever dream of affording to pay.

And for wine? As if we need more wine.