SALT LAKE TRIBUNE January 8, 2007 Farm Bureau chief wants an overhaul of labor system Recent plant raid a major talking point during SLC convention By Dawn House The Salt Lake Tribune The federal raid on a northern Utah meat-processing plant that nabbed 154 undocumented workers last month proves the U.S. labor and immigration systems are broken, according to members of a national agricultural group meeting in Salt lake City.
And if they're not fixed, American Farm Bureau Federation President Bob Stallman said, it could cost farmers and ranchers $5 billion annually from labor shortages.
Speaking on Sunday to some 5,000 farmers and ranchers meeting at the Salt Palace, Stallman said his organization is working to pressure the Bush Administration and Congress to enact immigration reform.
"Swift was using a state-of-the-art federally sanctioned worker ID program, but even that system apparently could not prevent a federal raid," he said at the start of the three-day national convention. "This serves as further proof that the system is broken."
In the December raid, 1,282 Swift & Co. employees were rounded up at the Hyrum plant and facilities in five other states. About 220 meat-processing workers are facing criminal charges - including identity theft.
Swift had been participating in a pilot program with the Department of Homeland Security that allows plants to check whether Social Security numbers used by workers are real. But the voluntary program did not identify who the numbers belonged to or whether workers were really that person.
Stallman said the only way to fix the system "is to enact a comprehensive bill that addresses all aspects of the immigration process, including U.S. agriculture's need for an adequate legal workforce."
Utah Farm Bureau President Leland Hogan said the raid has sent ripple effects through the agriculture industry, impacting documented immigrant workers, as well.
"Legal workers are afraid that they'll be caught up in another raid," said Hogan. "It takes time and money to prove they're here legally, along with personal disruptions to their individual families."
The roadblock to reform may stem from anti-immigration sentiments, said Don Lipton, communications director for the federation, the nation's largest agricultural organization with 6 million members. "There are feelings that jobs need to go to Americans, but in the agriculture sector, these jobs go begging."
North Carolina farmer Jimmy Dalton agreed, saying Americans will become dependent on an imported food supply if a guest program isn't enacted. "If we don't get enough workers," he said, "agriculture could be stopped dead in its tracks."
Geraldine Dement, from Tennessee, said her family's soybean and wheat farm is small enough that they can hire neighbors, "but there's not enough workers for the larger operations around us."
Overall, the nation's farmers and ranchers are facing a dramatic loss of income, said Stallman, the group's president. Income last year dropped to $58.9 billion, down from $73.8 billion the year before.
"The value of livestock production has dropped, the amount of direct government payments has fallen and production expenses have skyrocketed," he said. "We must do our best to control expenses, even while we realize that some, such as energy prices and related input costs, are largely beyond our control."
Still another factor beyond producers' control "is the impact of natural disasters," Stallman said.
This year's conference had been scheduled for New Orleans, but destruction from Hurricane Katrina forced a switch to Salt Lake City. Next year's convention, however, will be held in New Orleans. "Producers from nearly all regions and all production sectors were slammed last year," Stallman said. "If it wasn't drought, it was flood, And folks, here we go again. The blizzards in cattle country have recently hammered us." |