A generation later, worker advocates say, the Bracero program is on its way
back.
Late last month, at the behest of the agriculture industry, the U.S. Senate
overwhelmingly approved a provision in a massive appropriations bill that would
revive a large-scale "guest worker" program that opponents argue would revive
the evils of the Bracero era.
In fact, says Bruce Goldstein, head of the D.C.-based Farmworker Justice Fund,
the proposal, which passed the Senate without hearings and after less than an
hour of debate, could end up harming workers even more than the discredited old
program.
"The Bracero program had certain protections, " says Goldstein, who is leading
the fight against the bill. "The problem was, they weren't enforced. This time
around, the growers are making sure that those protections aren't in there."
Agribusiness lobbyists respond that the legislation actually enhances worker
protections, and they argue that it is desperately needed to stave off a severe
shortage of laborers that threatens U.S. farming.
U.S. workers don't want to do backbreaking farm labor, industry advocates say,
forcing growers to hire illegal immigrants who face the constant threat of
deportation. Legalizing this work force would provide employers with stability
and improve the workers' lot, says Sharon Hughes, chief lobbyist for the
National Council of Agricultural Employers (NCAE), the major agribusiness trade
group.
The legislation, attached to the Commerce, Justice, State and Judiciary
appropriations bill, has encountered opposition from worker advocates,
immigration scholars, labor unions, the United States Catholic Conference, and
the Clinton administration. Opponents say expanding guest worker programs would
undercut U.S. farm workers, institutionalize the low wages and poor working
conditions of foreign workers, and result in even more illegal immigration.
A handful of guest worker bills have also been introduced in the House of
Representatives.
The Senate bill is nothing more than an effort to legalize the exploitation of
illegal immigrants, says Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.). "This has nothing to do
with concern about hiring undocumented workers, " says Berman. "It has to do
with hiring workers on the cheap."
The proposed law would expand and revise the current agricultural guest worker
program, known as H-2A, which currently serves about 20, 000 workers.
Agricultural interests have been trying to enlarge the program for years. During
the current election cycle, fruit, vegetable, cotton, and flower growers and
their associations contributed almost $1 million, according to the Center for
Responsive Politics.
The industry found natural allies on the issue in farm state members such as
Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Bob Graham (D-Fla.), the architects of the Senate
bill.
Berman terms the bill a giveaway to agribusiness, which has "had the subsidy,
first of guest workers, then of undocumented workers, for many years." He says
growers have actively sought out illegal workers, rather than improve their
technology and offer competitive wages.
Wyden spokesman David Seldin replies, "Are you interested in preserving
agriculture or not? And if you are, you have to approach the issue from the
point of view of the economic realities that agriculture operates in."
The bill's opponents say there is no labor shortage. They point to the reports
of two bipartisan commissions that opposed expansion of the guest worker
program and to a December 1997 General Accounting Office study that concluded,
"A widespread farm labor shortage does not appear to exist now and is unlikely
in the near future."
The GAO report also noted that almost 40 percent of that work force was illegal.
However, the report said that there was very little enforcement by the
Immigration and Naturalization Service and little impact on the supply of farm
labor.
This has incensed growers. "It is unconscionable that the GAO is telling the
agricultural industry to be dependent on illegal workers, " says Hughes, who
adds that ever since the GAO report was released, the INS has cracked down on
farm employers.
The result, says Hughes, was a massive grass-roots effort in which growers from
around the country came to Washington to warn lawmakers about a looming labor
shortage resulting from INS enforcement.
INS spokesman Ivan Ortiz denies that the agency has increased enforcement
against farm workers in the last few years.
Helping the NCAE is longtime lobbyist Monte Lake of McGuiness & Williams.
Anthony Podesta and Charles Hansen of Podesta Associates were also brought onto
the team, primarily to deal with the Clinton administration. Podesta's brother
John is White House deputy chief of staff.
John Fraser, the Department of Labor's Wage and Hour acting chief, says the
administration strongly opposes the legislation. U.S. farmers, he says, need to
offer higher wages and working conditions that will attract domestic workers,
not keep their standards so low that only illegal immigrants will take the jobs.
The proposed legislation, he says, would only add legitimacy to the workers'
already poor working conditions.
Fraser notes that real wages for farm workers have fallen since the mid-1980s-
-the average yearly income for a family of farm workers is $6, 300--and that
labor costs make up only a small percentage of the cost of agricultural goods.
The guest worker process itself almost guarantees exploitation, according to the
1995 U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, headed by the late Barbara Jordan.
Because workers brought in on a contract can work for only one employer, they
are unlikely to complain about their treatment for fear of being fired and sent
home. The report concluded that binding a worker to an employer is "
incompatible with the values of democratic societies worldwide."
The case of Mexican farm worker Noe Rivera Garay illustrates the ups and downs
of being a guest worker. Garay, 26, has come in under the H-2A program for six
years. He says he has generally been happy with the program and makes far more
money than he can at home.
Every summer, Garay leaves his wife and young son behind for five months to work
for about $5.80 an hour picking tobacco in Virginia. But this year he took a job
picking vegetables in Georgia, and things turned out differently.
"It was slave work, " says Garay, speaking through an interpreter. He says he
slept in a room with 18 other men and ended up making only about $3 an hour. The
job was so bad that he left after a month and went back to Mexico.
"I was very disillusioned from this last experience, " he says, "but I will come
back if I can find the right grower who is not a slave driver. They should
realize that slavery was abolished some time ago."
Seldin, the Wyden spokesman, says illegal workers--almost half of migrant farm
workers--now have no protections at all. He argues that once they are legalized,
they will gain new rights.
Seldin points to the bill's guarantee of wages 5 percent above the local
prevailing rate, grower-provided housing or a housing stipend, and a Department
of Labor-run computer registry to match workers with employers. The registry, he
says, would give U.S. workers the first crack at a job before it is offered to
foreign workers.
Fraser of the Labor Department responds that the registry proposal is unworkable
and would not necessarily aid U.S. workers.
The bill's other promises of worker protections are illusory and even remove
some of the protections of the current H-2A program, says the Farmworker Justice
Fund's Goldstein. Many loopholes can be exploited by growers, he says, pointing
to language that permits workers to be paid as a group, so that only the average
payment meets the minimum wage. This means many workers could easily make less
than minimum wage.
Goldstein also notes that the bill abolishes the current H-2A guarantee that a
worker will be paid for at least 75 percent of the contract time for which he is
hired. This is important because workers may travel thousands of miles, and
the amount of farm work is notoriously unpredictable.
The housing guarantee also falls short, say worker advocates, because it allows
workers to be given a housing stipend rather than housing itself. Housing for
migrant laborers is severely lacking, particularly in the West, and the
specified amount--about $125 a month in Oregon, for instance--is meager, says
Michael Dale, a lawyer at the Oregon Law Center who represents farm workers.
The legislation, Dale says, "is basically telling people to sleep under
bridges."