YUMA SUN

December 24, 2008

Bush signs farm visa changes

By JOYCE LOBECK, SUN STAFF WRITER

Farm groups applaud the Bush administration's efforts to revamp the nation's agricultural guest worker program but aren't convinced the changes in the complex document will benefit them much.
 
Meanwhile, farmworker groups say the changes will lead to a flood of cheaper workers and worsen working conditions.
 
According to the Department of Labor, the changes include provisions to streamline the guest worker application process, revise the way wages are calculated and modify requirements for demonstrating that a labor shortage cannot be filled with U.S. workers. The changes are to go into effect Jan. 17.
 
"The government has decided to offer agriculture employers really low wages, low benefits, no government oversight to bring in foreign workers on restricted visas and thereby convince them they should do this instead of hiring undocumented workers," Bruce Goldstein, executive director of Farmworker Justice, said on the national farmworker advocacy group's Web site.

"These midnight regulations put farm workers in this country back more than 60 years. Is this really the legacy the Bush administration wants to leave behind?" concluded Goldstein.
 
While growers organizations are reserving judgment on whether the changes will improve the process for obtaining guest workers, they refute the charges they will lead to lower wages and abuses of workers.
 
Employers using the H-2A program now are required to pay an "adverse effect" wage, which tends to be higher than the prevailing wage for an area, said Jason Resnick, assistant general consul for Western Growers, which represents fruit and vegetable growers in Arizona and California. Furthermore, employers are required to pay that higher wage to domestic workers as well as imported workers.
 
With the new way of calculating wages, "that could create wages that are higher or lower than they have been," he said.
 
That's just one of the things that isn't clear about the published changes, he said. "It's a 500-page document ... very complicated. It remains to be seen if the changes will streamline the process. We reserve judgment until it goes into effect."
 
Although the number of guest workers obtained through the H-2A program has increased over the years, "it's still a minuscule percent of the overall agriculture employment because it is so complicated," said Resnick.
 
According to the Department of Labor, only about 75,000 farmworker positions nationwide were certified to be filled by legal H-2A employees last year.
 
While the exact number of H-2A workers in the Yuma area is unclear, "Arizona hasn't been a big participant in the program," said Kevin Rogers, president of the Arizona Farm Bureau.
 
He has mixed feelings about the changes to the program, but is hopeful they will "reduce some of the red tape for us."
 
However, he said, he's disappointed that the final rules don't include a provision for a day commuter guest worker program for the border area. For years, Yuma-area growers have pushed for a commuter program for workers who cross the border each morning to work in the fields and prefer to return home at night.
 
While he applauded the Bush administration for updating the "archaic" H-2A program, Resnick said the changes also don't address the undocumented workers already in the U.S.
 
"Immigration reform is still needed," he said.