Farm laborers aren’t finding work aplenty

Name: Alfredo Ramirez

Position: Vice president

Business: Ramirez Farm Labor Contractors Inc.

What he said then: Last summer’s farmworker shortage had local agricultural leaders keenly watching federal debate on the bipartisan Agricultural Job Opportunity, Benefits and Security Act, or AgJOBS.

“Farmers are competing on jobs,” said Alfredo Ramirez of Shandon-based Ramirez Farm Labor Contractors Inc. when The Tribune interviewed him in June 2007.

At the time, local growers reported paying some harvesters up to $12 an hour at peak demand. Typically they make just above minimum wage, Ramirez said.

What he says now:

“Things have changed dramatically,” Ramirez said Thursday. “We have too many laborers for the amount of work that has been available this year.”

Arizona employers are now required to use an otherwise voluntarily federal system to check Social Security numbers and fire anyone who doesn’t match up. For a first offense, employers face fines and a 10-day business license suspension.

That has sent a flood of freshly fired and highly skilled employees to California, Ramirez said. “There’s a lot of people going back to Mexico because they don’t have jobs here.”

It’s good news for farmers, who reap lower labor costs and less risk of losing unpicked crops. But Ramirez continues to worry about the course of federal immigration reform.

The Senate has gone “back and forth” on the AgJOBS bill, which is now “on hold,” he said. National Immigration Forum, an immigrant- rights advocate, reports that the White House asked Senate leadership to delay a vote until the presidential election.

Hundreds of Arizona businesses are challenging their new state law, worried a flawed system could lead to unjust employee terminations or business closures.

A bipartisan Senate bill introduced in May could require similar ID-verification nationwide. Critics worry about eroding privacy rights and overwhelming an understaffed administration.

Ramirez believes it wouldn’t keep undocumented workers out anyway.

They’d just “bounce around from labor contractor to labor contractor” until their identification mismatch was flagged, which could take many months or longer.

Ramirez employs about 150 people year round and full time, with as many as 500 at peak seasons.

He also owns Ramirez Labor Management, with an additional 170 full-time employees in the industrial sector.

“We’re starting to implement our verification processes right now,” Ramirez said.

It’s a slow procedure, but his goal is to build a stable and legally bulletproof work force. “That way we don’t take a big hit by these new immigration laws—state or federal.”