FORT MYERS (Florida) NEWS-PRESS

December 27, 2008

A growing reason to take on guest workers

Citrus growers benefit from new federal rules

BY LAURA RUANE

More than 100 workers from Mexico last month settled into new duplex-style housing built in a Hendry County orange grove not far from eastern Lehigh Acres.

Consolidated Citrus LP, the state’s biggest grower, sunk just more than $1 million into creating the five-building complex. It’s designed for the federal H2A guest worker program, and it includes such niceties as satellite TVs and a lawn leveled and sodded for soccer matches.

Once scorned by the citrus industry as too cumbersome and expensive, H2A hiring is winning converts, including Fort Myers-based Consolidated and Clewiston-based Southern Gardens Citrus, which crave a predictable supply of workers with papers to prove they are in this country legally.

Rule changes pending under the outgoing Bush administration could make the process easier and cheaper for farmers across America. The new rule was published a week ago in the Federal Register, and will go into effect Jan. 16.

Paul Schlegel, public policy director for the American Farm Bureau, said the new rule ties wage rates more accurately to prevailing market-based salaries for temporary farmworkers. He noted that some restrictions remain, including the prohibition of hiring foreign workers if U.S. laborers can be obtained.

Greg Schell, however, called the rule “the Bush administration’s present to the growers.” Schell is managing attorney for the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project of Florida Rural Legal Services Inc.

“The biggest thing from the workers’ point of view is that wages will go dramatically down,” Schell said. According to his reading of the new rule on the U.S. Labor Department’s Web site, the minimum guaranteed wage for guest workers will drop from the current equivalent of $8.82 an hour to $7.25 an hour.

Schell predicted legal challenges will be filed shortly after the new rule is published, and could include a battle in Congress.

Begun in 1943 to provide cane cutters for Florida’s sugar industry, the H2A program was designed to supply foreign workers for temporary jobs in agriculture that U.S. residents were unable or unwilling to fill.

IMAGE SPOTTY

Nationally and in Florida, the program has a spotty image, with numerous lawsuits filed on behalf of workers against employers and crew leaders, according to Schell, who mentioned two exceptions:

“The workers paid directly by Consolidated, who live in the pretty camp: We’ve got zero problems with them,” Schell said, adding he could say the same about the Southern Gardens’ company-managed guest worker program.

Citrus harvesters — H2A or otherwise — who are managed and paid by independent crew leaders aren’t as fortunate, according to Schell. He believes the current price structure for citrus delivered to a juice plant does not adequately support the minimum wage guaranteed H2A workers.

That leads some growers and crew leaders to cheat harvesters, Schell said, adding his organization recently settled a lawsuit with a labor contractor who’d worked with Consolidated.

Consolidated Citrus officials said they are responsible employers who pay what they owe.

Mike Bartos, Consolidated human resources director, said H2A workers provide almost all the fruit picking; however only about 15 percent of that work force is directly hired and managed by the company.

HOUSING HELPS

Providing quality housing “helps us achieve our goal of building a reliable work force that will want to return to Consolidated Citrus LP each season,” said Mitch Hutchcraft, company vice president for real estate.

In Mexico, H2A jobs “are highly prized,” Schell acknowledged. Farmworkers are relieved of taking risks crossing the border illegally, and are guaranteed steady work for eight to 10 months. After that, they can go home to see their families.

Despite higher than historical unemployment rates in Hendry and neighboring counties, growers such as Consolidated say they can’t find enough domestic labor to pick a Florida citrus crop that includes about 165 million, 90-pound boxes of oranges.

Lucas Benitez, a former orange harvester who’s now a staff member for the Collier County-based Coalition of Immokalee Workers, disagreed.

“In our area we have plenty of people who are willing and able to work in agriculture,” Benitez said, using a translator. “They don’t because the wages are so miserable, and the treatment you get is less than humane.

“People paid fair wages can choose on their own where they want to live. If workers are paid enough, the market will be forced to provide decent housing.”

Growers counter they do pay fair wages. And, because harvesters are paid according to the number of citrus tubs they fill, fast pickers earn more than the current $8.82 minimum, said Jim Snively, vice president/groves, for Southern Gardens Citrus.

“Our pickers are averaging $70 to $80 a day in an eight- or nine-hour day,” Snively said, adding: “That’s our average pickers, not our good guys. There are guys down here making $18,000 or more in six months — picking fruit.”

Asked what the Coalition of Immokalee Workers considers a fair wage for picking citrus, staff member Benitez replied: “If (employers) were to guarantee an hourly wage of $10 that could be verified by the time clock — that would be something we could talk about.”

Even the nicest company housing, Benitez noted, tends to isolate workers, making them more vulnerable to potential mistreatment.

Bartos said his company has nothing to hide from farmworker advocates.

“They know (the housing complex) is here,” Bartos said. “They have the ability to come and inspect whenever they want.”

However the rule change goes, Bartos sees his company committed to H2A hiring for the foreseeable future.

“You know you’ll have enough workers to harvest your crop. ... You know the workers are here legally. That was a big consideration for us.”