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February 8, 2009
Bills would let state step in to recruit foreign guest workers
Seattle Times staff reporter
As a worsening economy spreads
unemployment across Washington, proposed legislation would allow the
state government to recruit thousands of foreign workers for seasonal
jobs that nobody else wants.
House Bill 1896 and Senate Bill 5831
would authorize the state Employment Security Department to meet and
negotiate with foreign representatives to import temporary guest workers
for jobs in certain seasonal industries such as agriculture,
construction and hospitality that have become dependent on illegal
workers.
Existing federal regulations allow
employers to directly request guest-worker visas for seasonal foreign
workers — not unlike the so-called H-1B visa program that draws
professional workers to high-tech.
This new legislation would allow the
state to immediately step into that recruiter role on behalf of
employers who can show they have job vacancies not being filled by
domestic workers.
Immigration is the purview of the
federal government, not the state, and bill supporters are unclear
whether the state would need a waiver for wading into federal waters.
Employers would pay the state up to $500
per worker to participate in the program and could see the first wave of
foreign workers here by the summer of 2010.
Dan Fazio, director of employer services
for the Washington Farm Bureau, an industry group, said getting the
state involved would ensure that U.S. workers get first crack at the
jobs, while sending a clear message to Congress that growers' labor
problems are real.
"We're fighting this battle because
people believe farmers want to hire only illegal workers," he said. "I'm
tired of getting calls from members saying, 'I just found out a guy who
has worked for me for 12 years is illegal. What should I do?'
"I say, fire him," Fazio said. "We need
help. We can't keep hiring illegal workers."
Eric Nicholson, Northwest regional
director of the United Farm Workers union, called the legislation
"political theater at its worst."
Nicholson said the Farm Bureau would be
better off trying to get federal legislation passed that addresses the
industry's labor problems, rather than seeking a solution from the
state, which has no control over the nation's immigration laws.
"What magical powers do they have to do
this unilaterally?"
The Farm Bureau initially drafted the
legislation for its members in the agricultural industry — particularly
small- and medium-size ones that haven't on their own been able to
participate in the guest-worker program. It was expanded to include
other seasonal and peak-need industries.
It is estimated that more than 200,000
workers in Washington state use fraudulent documents to gain employment,
particularly in agriculture and construction.
In recent years, large numbers of farm
workers have left the fields for construction jobs in cities such as
Seattle, leaving an agricultural work force that is less predictable
from season to season. Growers told of apples rotting in their orchards
last season because they didn't have enough workers.
Stepped-up immigration enforcement has
added to growers' troubles, and many have turned to foreign guest-worker
programs to supplement domestic work forces.
Last year, nearly 3,000 workers — mostly
from Mexico and Thailand — were brought into the state to work on fruit
and vegetable farms.
With Congress in recent years failing to
reform the nation's immigration laws, states increasingly are looking
for ways to customize immigration policy to address problems within
their borders.
Under the existing programs, employers
or labor contractors must demonstrate that hiring foreign workers won't
adversely affect U.S. workers and won't depress their wages.
They must provide the guest workers
certain benefits, including free housing, transportation to and from
their home countries, and transportation daily to and from their jobs.
Growers see an ongoing need for foreign
workers, even as unemployment rolls expand across the state, because
they don't expect people laid off from Microsoft or Washington Mutual
will take jobs in the farm fields of Eastern Washington.
"I don't think the current labor
conditions will do much to change that," said Jon Warling, a farm-labor
contractor who recruits domestic and foreign workers for growers across
Eastern Washington.
"The folks out of work now are not farm
laborers."
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