AgJobs offers aid to workers
By Ari Bloomekatz
May 24, 2005 9:00 p.m.
Much of California’s agricultural workforce is
undocumented, a chronic problem for both unions and growers that
resulted in an unlikely bipartisan plan to legalize the
workforce.
The Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits and Security Act of
2005, or AgJobs, would give undocumented agricultural workers
across the nation the opportunity to apply for temporary resident
status, and eventually earn legal permanent resident status.
The bill had a majority of 53 votes in the Senate in April, but
fell short of the 60 votes necessary for it to pass. Proponents of
the act say they will soon try again, hopefully before the end of
the legislative year, and that AgJobs is a creative way to attack
immigration issues.
“We need to find a way to understand and create a system
where people who want to work can work, and where jobs can be
filled by people who aren’t filling them here. This is one
step forward,” said Karen Ross, president of the California
Wine Growers Association.
“I think it’s very appropriate that it was the
employer community and the employee community that said we both
have much to gain by working together and much to lose by keeping
the status quo,” Ross added.
According to the Farmworker Justice Fund Inc., a Washington,
D.C.-based organization that works on issues of migrant labor,
AgJobs would allow laborers who had worked in U.S. agriculture for
at least 100 days between July 1, 2003 and Dec. 31, 2004 within a
consecutive 12-month period to apply for temporary resident
status.
After receiving temporary residence, laborers could work in any
job up to six years, and then eventually apply for a green card if
they qualified, according to the Farmworker Justice Fund Inc.
Growers and unions are supporting the bill, each finding
benefits of a legalized workforce.
“Working as an undocumented person, it’s much, much
easier to be exploited. A lot of workers feel compelled to stay
quiet when there are injustices in the workplace,” said Diana
Tellefson, national immigration reform field director for the
United Farm Workers.
“(Undocumented workers are) important and they should be
able … to have the same types of worker protections that other
workers in the U.S. have,” she said.
Howard Rosenberg, cooperative extension specialist at UC
Berkeley, said the bill is beneficial for growers because they can
have a legal workforce and not have to worry about workers hiding
from immigration police.
Oftentimes growers need about 40 or 50 workers to perform a
certain task immediately, and Rosenberg said it is important for
growers to know those laborers will be there.
The Irvine-based Western Growers Association, which says its
members are responsible for 50 percent of the nation’s total
fresh produce production, also supports the bill.
Tim Chelling, WGA’s vice president of communications, said
it was time for a change.
“The system is clearly broken,” he said.
“It is time to have something done to resolve the insanity
of the current situation.”
