UFW: LAST DITCH BID BY BUSH ADMINISTRATION WILL LOWER FARM WORKER WAGES AND HELP GROWERS REPLACE DOMESTIC WORKERS WITH FOREIGN LABORERS
The Bush Administration today announced major changes in the nation’s H2A agricultural guest worker program that would make it easier for growers to slash the pay of domestic farm workers, reduce housing benefits and make it easier to hire imported foreign laborers instead of U.S. field workers.
“In the midst of a critical economic crisis, we cannot afford to expand guest worker programs and reduce the wages of the lowest-paid U.S. workers,” said Arturo S. Rodriguez, president of the Cesar Chavez-founded United Farm Workers of America. “This parting gesture from the Bush Administration symbolizes its failure to work with the Latino community on this key issue.”
The new regulations mean that farm employers will no longer be responsible for certifying that labor shortages exists and therefore engage in meaningful recruitment of U.S. farm workers before requesting imported H2A foreign field workers. In addition, for the first time domestic workers could be paid less and receive fewer benefits than their H-2A guestworker counterparts. The changes come even as the administration has failed to enforce existing rules.
The plight of U.S. farm workers laboring under Third World working conditions on American soil has never been more apparent than last summer when six farm workers died in California fields due to heat-related causes and the growers’ negligence in providing water and shade in violation of a state regulation issued at the request of the UFW by Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. DOL’s new rules open a gaping loophole in the employers’ obligation to provide housing and will allow employers to claim that they face an emergency unavailability of housing and must put the farmworkers up in a decrepit former motel or substandard mobile homes. Such existing working conditions are horrendous and deadly; the UFW argues they need to be improved, not worsened.
“Slashing wages and reducing benefits for farm workers is not the solution we need,” Rodriguez continued. “These changes from President Bush ignore the real issue of providing a safe and reliable agricultural work force along with a blatant disregard by the Bush administration for the needs of the fastest growing voter population in the country.” The UFW is calling on Congress to act quickly to reverse these regulatory changes as hiring for the upcoming seasons begins.
Founded in 1962 by Cesar Chavez, the United Farm Workers of America is the nation’s first successful and largest farm workers union, currently active in 10 states. The UFW continues to organize in major agricultural industries across the nation.
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