Written by Bruce Goldstein
Dan Rather hosted a TV story and published an op-ed piece, "Help Not Wanted" in the HuffingtonPost, about farmworkers in the United States who are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents and have applied for jobs with agricultural employers but have been rejected, fired or forced to quit and replaced by guestworkers under the H-2A program. The piece focuses on Georgia growers and local workers. Rather goes on to question whether Stephen Colbert was "duped" into believing that very few U.S. workers want jobs on farms by the United Farm Workers "Take Our Jobs Campaign."
Yes, there really are some US workers who want agricultural jobs. And yes, the H-2A program is truly and deeply problematic because the growers prefer vulnerable foreign workers and often will discriminate against U.S. workers.
Read about the H-2A programs' inherent problems on our website at: http://www.farmworkerjustice.org/guestworker-programs/188
But the reality is that the majority of the farm labor force – hundreds of thousands people – are undocumented and the agricultural system would collapse without them. Of course, wages and working conditions should be much better in agriculture, but such improvements would not fundamentally change the reality of who performs farm work.
Rather's piece notes that Sen. Saxby Chambliss of Georgia, a Republican with a long history on these issues, recently proposed legislation. His new bill is similar to what he proposed in the 1990’s. It failed then and it should fail now. It is based on lowering government oversight of the H-2A program , lowering labor standards, eliminating the ability of legal aid lawyers to protect the rights of guestworkers, and other provisions that would supply farmers with cheap foreign labor with no rights. U.S. workers would suffer even more than they do now. Undocumented workers would not have a path to legal immigration status and citizenship. It contains the worst of every proposed solution.
The answer is the AgJOBS legislation. It would reform the H-2A program in balanced ways so that U.S. workers are granted access to jobs and so that foreign workers are not so exploited (and would have meaningful access to the federal courts for the first time to protect their rights). AgJOBS also would create an earned legalization program to allow undocumented, experienced farmworkers to obtain legal immigration status. The AgJOBS bill is a reasonable compromise between farmworker organizations and employers; read about it.
So, Mr. Rather was correct that the H-2A program does abuse U.S. workers and we need to remedy those ills, which have persisted for decades. Stephen Colbert also also correct that we need an answer to the reality that hundreds of thousands of productive farmworkers lack authorized immigration status and should be given the opportunity to earn visas.
New York Times columnist Maureen Dowd, mesmerized by the Metropolitan Opera's production of Wagner's "Das Rheingold," wrote,
"It unfolds with mythic sweep, telling the most compelling story of all, the one I cover every day in politics:
What happens when the powerless become powerful and the powerful become powerless?"
How is this relevant to farmworker justice? Stephen Colbert recently testified before Congress and was asked, at the very end of the hearing why he had spent his time working on a farm for a day and coming to the House of Representatives immigration subcommittee, said:
"I like talking about people who dont have any power. And this seems like one of the least powerful people in the United States are migrant workers who come and do our work but dont have any rights as a result. And yet, we still invite them to come here. And at the same time, ask them to leave. And thats an interesting contradiction to me."
Unfortunately, as the New York Times recently said in an editorial about Congressional hearings on immigration policy, "We are not sure all committee members got it. We believe a lot more Americans would, if their elected leaders talked as bluntly and as persuasively as Mayor Bloomberg and Mr. Murdoch — and with as much heart as Mr. Colbert." Nor did all pundits get it, as we noted in a letter to the Washington Post.
We look forward to the day when migrant farmworkers gain a little bit of power to control their own destinies. We expect they will be more respectful of the less powerful than those who currently wield power.
