BRATTLEBORO (Vermont) REFORMER

February 12,  2010

Leahy irked by farm bill

Plans to push legislation on foreign dairy workers

By HOWARD WEISS-TISMAN

BRATTLEBORO -- Migrant workers who are illegally working on dairy farms all over Vermont will be forced to continue living under the radar after the U.S. Labor Department failed to address their status in the new rule on seasonal agricultural workers.

The Labor Department on Thursday announced new rules about the H-2A program, which allows farmers to hire foreign laborers for seasonal work.

The Obama administration said the new rules will strengthen worker protections by increasing wages and improving job safety, reversing the Bush administration rule that labor and immigrant rights groups opposed.

Dairy workers, who spend all year on the farm, have never been included in the H-2A program and Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has been urging the Labor Department to allow them into the program.

He submitted comments to the Labor Department last year while the new rule was under consideration

"I am deeply disappointed with the Department of Labor's final rule on H-2A agricultural workers," Leahy said Thursday after the Labor Department's new rule was released. "This rule falls short, leaving dairy farms in the lurch."

It is estimated that there are between 1,500 and 2,000 people from Mexico and other countries working on farms in Vermont.

Many of them are here illegally and the threat of a federal crackdown adds to the already challenging times facing dairy farmers.

In November, federal agents raided a number of farms around Vermont as part of nationwide sweep to investigate alleged immigration and labor violations in the agriculture industry.

"With the dairy industry reeling in Vermont and across the nation, the final rule continues to exclude the dairy industry from lawfully hiring seasonal foreign workers when needed," Leahy said.

The Labor Department said it did not have the legal authority to include the entire dairy industry in the H-2A visa program, though Leahy said Congress "clearly gave the Secretary (of Labor) authority to define agricultural labor and services through regulation."

Leahy, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee and the most senior member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, promised to introduce legislation that would allow dairy workers to obtain the H-2A visas.

Leahy wants the migrant dairy workers to be allowed in the country for a year, and then be eligible for additional one year periods as approved by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

Workers would be able to petition to become U.S. citizens after three years, under Leahy's proposed bill.

Vermont Secretary of Agriculture Roger Allbee also weighed in last year when the new rule was being written.

Allbee, and top agriculture officials from around the Northeast, said the foreign workers were crucial to the region's dairy industry and said the industry could collapse without them.

On Thursday, Allbee said he was disappointed that the new rule did nothing to address the problem that forces Vermont dairy farmers to break federal immigration rules every time they bring an undocumented foreign worker on to the farm

"We hoped the Labor Department would recognize that dairy farmers need help," Allbee said. "We think their decision is unreasonable and can't be easily explained."

Sheep farmers in the West are allowed to use the H-2A visa program to hire year-round workers and the Labor Department even went as far as to include logging into the new rule.

Allbee has met with top government officials, as well as with agriculture leaders from around the country, and while everyone agrees that there is a problem there does not seem to be a simple solution.

Immigration policy is highly charged, Allbee said, and it is extremely hard to get Congress to agree on any kind of immigration reform.

U.S Department of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack is scheduled to make his first visit to Vermont this weekend and Allbee said the foreign worker issue is sure to be discussed.

"Everyone knows the workers are here illegally but without them our food system would be severely hindered," Allbee said. "I have conversations with people at the highest level who say they want to address this but there doesn't seem to be any easy way to solve it."

U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis said the new rule protects both migrant workers and American farm workers.

The new rule ensures that U.S workers in the same occupation, working for the same employer, receive no less than the same wage as foreign workers and it requires farmers to make a greater effort to hire American workers before bringing in labor from outside the country.

"This new rule will make it possible for all workers who are working hard on American soil to receive fair pay while at the same time expand opportunities for U.S. workers," Solis said. "The actions that we have taken through this rulemaking will also enable us to detect and remedy different forms of worker violations."

The new rule goes into effect on March 15.