ASSOCIATED PRESS

June 7, 2006

Immigration raids put chill on day of lobbying

By CARA ANNA
Associated Press Writer

ALBANY, N.Y. -- Recent immigration raids and fears of others turned Tuesday's annual lobbying day for farmworker rights at the state capitol into an unusually quiet scene _ with no farmworkers present at all.

The annual day usually draws dozens of workers loudly asking for the basic rights offered to other New York workers, including a day off a week, overtime pay and collective bargaining.

Instead, Tuesday's rally drew close to 100 advocates and those friendly to the cause.

"There is such fear right now," said Damaris McGuire, a lobbyist for the Justice for Farmworkers campaign and executive director of the New York State Public Policy Network. "We cannot in good conscience ask them (farmworkers) to come."

One pre-dawn immigration raid last month picked up 29 illegal Mexican immigrants in southern Erie and Cattaraugus counties. They were on their way to work at a local plant nursery.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers were not available Tuesday to say how many farmworkers have been picked up in New York state in recent months.

Ami Kadar, the interim director of the Centro Independiente de Trabajadores Agricolas in western New York, said about 75 percent of her work now is dealing with immigration-raid cases.

Despite recent national rallies for immigrant rights, local workers' fear of appearing in public "puts a damper on things" in their fight for a better workplace, Kadar said before Tuesday's events at the capitol.

Without the farmworkers, it was up to religious leaders, labor leaders and others to take their case to state legislators.

They're pressing a bill that would remove decades-old exemptions in state labor law for farmworkers. It would give them the same right as other workers to overtime, a day off, equal access to workers compensation and other benefits.

Spiking her words with a touch of salt, McGuire listed the benefits for farmworkers won so far in a decade of lobbying: "The state minimum wage _ get this _ toilet facilities in the fields, fresh water in the fields. Those are our concrete accomplishments over the past 10 years."

A statement released Tuesday by the New York Farm Bureau called the lobbying efforts a "misinformation storm."

"Every year, so-called farmworker advocates try to manipulate the public and the press into accepting the myth that farmers do not pay or treat their workers well," said John Lincoln, the bureau's president. "The truth is our employees are paid and treated fairly, which is why they happily continue to work on our farms year after year."

It's hard to say what this legislative session, especially in an election year, will bring, McGuire said.

The bill passed the Assembly last year, but a matching bill never made it out of the labor committee in the Senate. Getting through the Senate is the tough part, advocates said.

A spokesman for Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, Mark Hansen, said the current farmworker bill is being looked at.

"In recent years, the senator has been very supportive ... by increasing the minimum wage and providing adequate housing and sanitation facilities," Hansen said.

Farmworker advocates say they plan to meet this week with the Republican chairman of the Senate labor committee, George Maziarz, whose district covers three western New York counties.