PLATTSBURGH (New York) PRESS-REPUBLICAN

June 7, 2009

Immigrant labor also a problem

By BRUCE ROWLAND
Contributing Writer

PLATTSBURGH — As if a milk-pricing crisis isn't enough, labor issues related to immigrant workers are also plaguing North Country dairy farmers.

"Even though the U.S. is in a depression and there are not a lot of jobs, it's really hard to find people to work on a dairy farm," said Anita Deming, Essex County Cooperative Extension executive director.

As a result, dairymen who have labor needs turn to immigrant workers from Mexico or Guatemala who show up at their doorstep asking for work. They generally have papers and it is assumed they are here legally under the H-2A temporary agricultural workers system. This is the same program that brings Jamaican apple pickers to the North Country every year and has worked effectively for decades.

Under this program, they may work for eight-to-10 months and then have to go back to their home country for three or four months. That works fine for apple growers, but dairy farms need year-round labor so it takes a little juggling. And they are not officially part of the program.

"Some dairy farmers have been trying to use that program because there's no alternative for them," Deming said, adding that they must pay the prevailing wage rate — $10 to $12 per hour — so the laborers don't really work as cheaply as people may think. Some fear they are causing unfair competition among dairy farmers or are undercutting the local workforce.

"They're making a lot money for a short period of time," Deming said. "It's way more than minimum wage."

She said farmers must set up a rotation whereby three or four people may work for eight months before they go home and are replaced by three or four other temporary workers.

"They always have to have people in the milking parlor," she said. "A lot of people don't understand the program. It's the only legal thing we've got right now."

Five years ago, there were none of these workers on upstate New York dairy farms, but now it is believed there are hundreds. Perhaps 11,000 to 40,000 are present statewide, according to some estimates. Some believe up to three-quarters may have entered the country illegally.

Inconsistencies and ambiguities in the law have led to a "don't ask, don't tell" culture. It is against the law to knowingly hire an illegal immigrant, but it is also against the law not to hire someone with work papers and it's often impossible to tell the difference.

After the divisive illegal-immigration debate during the Bush administration, many fear it's an issue that isn't going to be solved right away.

"It's just not going to happen," Deming predicted.

It's stressful for the farmers who hire these workers, she said, because if there's an immigration raid, even if the workers are legal and the farmer is in the right, the workers can be pulled off the farm leaving no one to milk the cows.

"You can't just not milk for five days," Deming said. "That could put a dairy farmer out of business."

Some local dairymen, like James Normandin of Ellenburg, don't like competing against large farms with immigrant workers.

"If you have immigrant labor, it's not really a family farm."

But the main point, he said, is that the availability of all the foreign workers contributes to the milk-surplus problem.

"The immigrant labor is directly related to that," he said.

A company like Nova Bus, which is locating a plant in Plattsburgh, does surveys before they commit to the area to be sure there are enough workers, he noted. If there aren't, they don't come.

The same is true with large farms, he said. If the workers weren't available, they wouldn't be able to ramp up their production.

Tom Maloney, a senior extension associate in the Department of Applied Economics and Management at Cornell University, said his department did a study in 2004 focusing on Hispanic dairy workers. He said most are young men who haven't finished high school.

He said most dairy farmers are doing what they would do when they hire any employee. They check their IDs, Social Security Card and any other required paperwork.

"The difficulty is, some of the documents the immigrants present turn out not to be valid," Maloney said. "Therein lies the problem."

He said the immigrant workers tend to stay close to the farms and not call a lot of attention to themselves. He said there are estimates, but no reliable numbers as to how many there are in any give area.

"There is no data we can reference," he said, and there is no money to do further studies.

Maloney said a measure called the AgJOBS Bill was reintroduced into Congress several weeks ago, and that may help clear things up. "That has two titles in it," he said. The first provides for immigrants who work in agriculture to sign up and begin a path to citizenship. The second streamlines and expands the H-2A program and includes dairy farmers in it.

"If you're a dairy farmer, there is no program for you," he said. "That's pretty significant."

He said the bottom line is the agricultural community wholeheartedly supports AgJOBS. However, given the history of the issue, the outcome is far from certain.

The New York Apple Association, whose members employ Jamaican migrant pickers, also supports the legislation. For apple growers, the bill restructures and reforms the current program by substantially streamlining its administrative procedures.

"Despite the high unemployment rate, our industry still does not have a reliable workforce and will not until the AgJOBS bill is passed," said Jim Allen, Apple Association president. "Without an adequate supply of agriculture guest workers to harvest American-grown food, we will be importing our food the same way we do our oil."

While there have been few problems locally, over the past three years immigration raids throughout Western New York have left apple growers scrambling to harvest crops. Every apple, usually more than three billion per season, is picked by hand by skilled migrant laborers, Allen said.

state proposal a concern

Meanwhile, state farm organizations are wary of another proposed law working its way through the State Legislature. The Farmworker Omnibus Bill has been approved by the Senate Labor Committee. It has moved through committee in the Assembly and is pending a vote in that chamber.

It would require mandatory payment of overtime to farm workers, even though this year many will make more than the farmers themselves, according to the New York Farm Bureau.

The bill also makes mandatory the payment of unemployment insurance for small-farm employers, even for seasonal workers. It requires disability insurance for injuries off the job and provides for collective bargaining and union organizing.

"If these bills go through, it will cause a nuclear explosion that destroys our state's top industry," said Sen. Catharine Young of Orlean. "Thousands of farms will go under and countless jobs at farms, processing plants and farm-supply businesses will be lost."

She said crops will be left to rot in the fields because farmers won't have the money to harvest them and dairy cows will be taken to processing facilities because farmers can't afford to milk them.

"It will be the final nail in the coffin for upstate's economy," she said.

New York Farm Bureau President Dean Norton also said that, while well-intentioned, the bill would put the state's agricultural industry in a major tailspin. "The tragic irony of the situation is that the sponsors are primarily form New York City or urban areas, and most of them have never been on a farm," he said.

No other state, except California, has such a comprehensive labor mandate on their farm families, according to the Farm Bureau.

Jon Greenwood, a dairy farmer from St. Lawrence County, estimated the bill would cost him $6,000 a week in overtime costs alone.