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Patriot Games
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http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2007/5/30/152326.shtml?s=us
Labor Movement Divided Over Immigration Bill
NewsMax.com Wires Thursday, May 31, 2007
SANGER, Calif. --In the 1960s, farm labor leader Cesar Chavez rallied
fieldhands to speak out against a guest worker program that recruited
millions of Mexicans to pick crops at low wages.
Today, farmworker advocates are throwing their weight behind a proposal in
the current Senate immigration bill that would bring thousands of laborers
to the country's most productive fields but offer them virtually no chance
of putting down roots in the U.S.
The United Farm Workers say it is their best shot at improving working
conditions in fields nationwide, and especially in California, where 92
percent of workers are foreign-born.
Activists complain that immigrant farmworkers are sometimes underpaid, not
paid at all, overworked, exposed to pesticides, given poor housing or
subjected to other abuses.
Some aging members of the last temporary-worker push - the Bracero Program,
which operated from 1942 to 1964 - worry the plan could repeat past
indignities.
"If they're going to have braceros again, well, they need protection," said
Agustin Oropeza, an 82-year-old from Zamora, Mexico, who picked oranges,
lemons, lettuce and tomatoes in California in the 1940s and '50s. "They
can't just leave them to sleep in the middle of the fields and drink from
puddles, like they did with us."
The proposed AgJobs program brokered between growers and the UFW over the
past decade would open the way to legal status for those who have worked in
U.S. agriculture for at least 150 days over a two-year period ending Dec.
31, 2006. The program would be capped at 1.5 million.
After that, new farm laborers would be recruited in their home countries and
brought to the U.S. under an existing guest worker program, but would be
able to stay for only 10 months at a time. They would not automatically
qualify for citizenship and would have to wait an estimated eight years just
to get on line.
Even then, they would have little chance of winning permanent residency,
because a new point system would give higher priority to people with
education and skills.
Farmers who claim labor shortages left fruit rotting on the ground last
summer say it is a fair agreement. Union leaders are dismayed newer recruits
will not get a pathway to citizenship.
But "we're willing to work through the process so we're at the table," said
Diana Tellefson, executive director of the UFW Foundation, a nonprofit
organization linked to the union. "We're going to fight tooth and nail to
make sure that workers have the protections they need."
The AFL-CIO and the Laborers' union oppose the broader immigration bill,
arguing that workers here on a temporary basis are more vulnerable to labor
violations. The AFL-CIO contends some pickers will stay in this country
illegally rather than go home when their time is up - something that
happened under the Bracero Program, too.
Lulu Valdez, a young mother in Porterville, said her relatives in Mexico who
work in the sugarcane harvest would willingly come to the U.S. for just a
few months each year. But she added: "I just think a broader amnesty would
be a lot better."
The old Bracero program brought some 4.6 million Mexicans to the U.S. to
work on farms and in railyards, easing the labor shortages that developed on
the homefront during World War II.
Chavez spoke out frequently against the program in the 1960s, which he
believed exploited Mexican workers and kept down wages for domestic
farmworkers. At the time, about half of the farm labor consisted of U.S.
citizens. Now the bulk of the force is foreign-born.
Russel Efird, who heads the Farm Bureau Federation in Fresno County, which
produced $4.85 billion in crops and livestock last year, said he cannot be
assured he can harvest his plum orchard unless AgJobs passes.
"We know it's a fact that we have undocumented workers working in our
fields," Efird said. "But if we can't get our crops harvested then where is
our food going to come from?"
Labor Movement Divided Over Immigration Bill
NewsMax.com Wires Thursday, May 31, 2007
SANGER, Calif. --In the 1960s, farm labor leader Cesar Chavez rallied
fieldhands to speak out against a guest worker program that recruited
millions of Mexicans to pick crops at low wages.
Today, farmworker advocates are throwing their weight behind a proposal in
the current Senate immigration bill that would bring thousands of laborers
to the country's most productive fields but offer them virtually no chance
of putting down roots in the U.S.
The United Farm Workers say it is their best shot at improving working
conditions in fields nationwide, and especially in California, where 92
percent of workers are foreign-born.
Activists complain that immigrant farmworkers are sometimes underpaid, not
paid at all, overworked, exposed to pesticides, given poor housing or
subjected to other abuses.
Some aging members of the last temporary-worker push - the Bracero Program,
which operated from 1942 to 1964 - worry the plan could repeat past
indignities.
"If they're going to have braceros again, well, they need protection," said
Agustin Oropeza, an 82-year-old from Zamora, Mexico, who picked oranges,
lemons, lettuce and tomatoes in California in the 1940s and '50s. "They
can't just leave them to sleep in the middle of the fields and drink from
puddles, like they did with us."
The proposed AgJobs program brokered between growers and the UFW over the
past decade would open the way to legal status for those who have worked in
U.S. agriculture for at least 150 days over a two-year period ending Dec.
31, 2006. The program would be capped at 1.5 million.
After that, new farm laborers would be recruited in their home countries and
brought to the U.S. under an existing guest worker program, but would be
able to stay for only 10 months at a time. They would not automatically
qualify for citizenship and would have to wait an estimated eight years just
to get on line.
Even then, they would have little chance of winning permanent residency,
because a new point system would give higher priority to people with
education and skills.
Farmers who claim labor shortages left fruit rotting on the ground last
summer say it is a fair agreement. Union leaders are dismayed newer recruits
will not get a pathway to citizenship.
But "we're willing to work through the process so we're at the table," said
Diana Tellefson, executive director of the UFW Foundation, a nonprofit
organization linked to the union. "We're going to fight tooth and nail to
make sure that workers have the protections they need."
The AFL-CIO and the Laborers' union oppose the broader immigration bill,
arguing that workers here on a temporary basis are more vulnerable to labor
violations. The AFL-CIO contends some pickers will stay in this country
illegally rather than go home when their time is up - something that
happened under the Bracero Program, too.
Lulu Valdez, a young mother in Porterville, said her relatives in Mexico who
work in the sugarcane harvest would willingly come to the U.S. for just a
few months each year. But she added: "I just think a broader amnesty would
be a lot better."
The old Bracero program brought some 4.6 million Mexicans to the U.S. to
work on farms and in railyards, easing the labor shortages that developed on
the homefront during World War II.
Chavez spoke out frequently against the program in the 1960s, which he
believed exploited Mexican workers and kept down wages for domestic
farmworkers. At the time, about half of the farm labor consisted of U.S.
citizens. Now the bulk of the force is foreign-born.
Russel Efird, who heads the Farm Bureau Federation in Fresno County, which
produced $4.85 billion in crops and livestock last year, said he cannot be
assured he can harvest his plum orchard unless AgJobs passes.
"We know it's a fact that we have undocumented workers working in our
fields," Efird said. "But if we can't get our crops harvested then where is
our food going to come from?"
