8th Annual Labor Conference

The Washington Farm Labor Association’s 8th Annual Labor Conference is coming up in Ellensburg, February 16th. Numerous labor issues will be addressed in over fifteen presentations, with the labor shortage being of primary focus. Last fall a fairly significant amount of Washington’s apple crop was left unharvested due to picker shortages. Improving this situation is a number one priority. The WAFLA believes it has found a way through the H-2A guest worker program to do just that. Dan Fazio, association Director, says help from D.C.for labor shortages is not forthcoming and solutions will have to be found on the local level.

FAZIO: What was evident is there’s going to be no help from Washington D.C. We’re going to have to solve this shortage ourselves. It’s kind of like what would happen if we didn’t have immigrant labor, and that’s really where we are now because no one’s coming up; all the people that are working here, they’re really reluctant to work in migrant labor anymore and so we’re really seeing what it’s going to be like in the tree fruit industry if we don’t have a guest worker program. So all of our focus is on getting a good comprehensive legal, stable, and cost effective labor solution in the form of a guest worker program.

In addition to conference Q & A sessions by representatives from agencies such as ICE and L&I there will be a special leadership summit from Washington State University the evening before the labor conference where people can get leadership training from WSU.

I’m Lacy Gray and that’s Washington Ag Today on the Northwest Ag Information Network.