12/19/08 New rules exclude dairy

In the final days of the Bush Administration the Labor Department has announced new hiring rules aimed at cutting some of the red tape for employers who hire foreign farm workers. SCHLEGEL "I guess you could say this is a baby step in the right direction. It's frankly much less than what we need because of diary and other sectors. But it does look like it's an improvement." The American Farm Bureau's Paul Schlegel says even with a half million jobs lost recently there won't be any rush to work in the fields. Labor is still hard to fine. One positive note is the use of a new formula for determining migrant labor wages. SCHLEGEL "What we want is a market based wage so that you're paying customarily what a worker would earn in the market. We think it goes toward that but we need to look at the details to be sure." But the biggest problem with the new rules says Schlegel is the impact to the dairy industry. SCHLEGEL "Dairy employs thousands of workers but the department has said these are not temporary jobs, there not seasonal jobs, therefore dairy can't use the program. So we will need legislation to do that." Schlegel says it's going to be hard for President-elect Obama to get Congress to push for an AgJobs bill or any immigration reform in his first year in office given massive economic, energy and health issues that need immediate attention. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott