Farm Labor Hiccup

Farm Labor Hiccup. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

Within hours of her swearing in, labor secretary Hilda Solis decided to suspend new regulations approved by the Bush Administration that simplify rules for hiring foreign farm workers.  Those rules are known as the H-2A program and went into effect in January.

SCHLEGEL: We’re very disheartened. What you have is a federal agency is going to make it easier for people without authorization to work in the U.S. at a time when American workers are losing their jobs and that’s wrong. 

American Farm Bureau labor specialist Paul Schlegel says that’s because the rules the department wants to put on hold forced states to make sure locally recruited workers can legally work here…the other rules don’t.   Plus he says the sudden switch will cause a lot of confusion.

SCHLEGEL: You have growers out there who have spent a lot of time learning the new rules.  A lot of people have already filed applications under the new rules.  It’s going to be confusing and disruptive to all of those people and they’re now going to have to go back to another set of rules. 

Schlegel says the labor secretary’s decision will force growers to cut through a lot more red tape and pay inflated wages.

SCHLEGEL: The old rules, in most instances, call for higher wage costs.  People will say they’re fairer for workers.  The fact is they’re inflated.  It’s an artificial formula that produces those wages.  They’re not based on wages paid in the marketplace. 

Schlegel talks about the effect the suspension of new farm labor rules will have on growers. 

SCHLEGEL: If that rule is, in fact, suspended as they’re proposing, it would have an immediate effect on farmers.  Number one, we have farmers who have sent in applications under the new rules.  We don’t know how those are going to be handled.  It’s going to cause confusion.  Number two, the requirements of the old rules, which they want to reinstate, in some instances are far more strict than those under the new rules.  The wages farmers would pay under the new rules are lower.  So they will have increased costs as a result of this action.  Another issue was the new rules that are going to be revoked require a state agency who refers a worker to a farm to prove that he’s eligible to work.  That would be done away with.  So you could have people not authorized to work, and yet a farmer would be obliged to hire them.  And lastly, there is a requirement under which a farmer must hire somebody who reports for work halfway through the contract.  That would be reinstated under the old rules.

Schlegel says the suspension of new labor rules could have a big impact on a lawsuit filed against those rules by farm worker and labor groups.

SCHLEGEL: We’re not happy.  About two weeks ago American Farm Bureau filed to intervene in the lawsuit because we were concerned that it could be settled in a way that would be detrimental to farmers.  This new proposal the department has come out with, in effect, will get rid of the lawsuit without obliging them to talk with us about what directions the policies ought to take.  So we’re very concerned. 

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.