Farm Workers Key to Immigration Debate

For the first time, there seems to be a real possibility that Congress will, at last, enact an immigration reform law that will dramatically reduce--if not stop--the ever-increasing flow of foreign workers who, desperate for any kind of income, illegally slip into this country, depressing wages and taking jobs away from American citizens and other workers who are here legally.

But it is still only a possibility. To enhance its prospects, hectic negotiations are going on behind closed doors in Washington to reconcile serious remaining differences between powerful forces that could kill the urgently needed legislation when it comes up for congressional action in the second week of June. (As an indication of the size of the problem, it has been estimated that more illegal aliens enter the United States each year than enter all of the other countries of the world combined.)

One of the most difficult problems standing in the way of immigration reform is a provision in the Senate-approved plan to create a “guest worker” program reminiscent of the discredited, now-defunct “bracero” program that, in effect, gave growers a government-approved, captive foreign work force.

Growers, particularly in the Southwest, rely heavily on illegal aliens to perform low-paying, difficult farm labor jobs. Many U.S. workers now don’t want the farm jobs because the hard work usually provides them with below-poverty-level incomes.

Although farm workers make up only an estimated 10% to 15% of the millions of illegals now in the United States, growers seem to have enough political clout to be able to block passage of the law if they don’t get something like a new bracero program.

Most growers don’t want to lose that source of cheap labor. And they know that if immigration reform passes without some kind of bracero program, they, like other employers, face substantial fines if they continue to use illegal aliens.

But the bracero, or “guest worker” plan, which has grower support, is opposed by the powerful chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Peter W. Rodino Jr. (D-N.J.), who has worked for years to win passage of immigration reform. It is also opposed by organized labor. They argue that if growers and other employers would just pay workers decent wages, they could attract enough workers from the ranks of the millions of unemployed legal residents of this country to meet all of their employment needs.

So a compromise proposal is in the works. Some observers fear that the proposal will weaken the chance of passing immigration reform. But the compromise seems to make so much sense that it might turn out to be the key to passage of the measure.

Pushing hardest for the compromise are two California Democrats, Reps. Howard L. Berman of Panorama City and Leon E. Panetta of Monterey, and Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.). They are seeking a compromise that they hope will have the approval of both growers and unions. Since Panetta is usually on the side of growers and Berman has substantial labor backing, their effort could succeed.

The heart of the compromise is to give growers the right to use their present work force, including illegal aliens who can prove at least a relatively brief, recent history of work in agriculture.

If they are “legalized,” workers who object to the wages and conditions of farm jobs could not be shipped back to their native countries. They could move out of agriculture to seek other jobs in urban areas.

Under the bracero plan, if workers feel abused by one grower, they can only move to another job in agriculture or be sent back to their native countries.

Berman argues that if legalized farm workers are treated well, they will not move on to the cities. But if they do, better farm wages and conditions will attract an adequate supply of U.S. domestic workers anyway.

Other parts of the immigration reform measure now before Congress would allow non-farm illegal aliens to remain here legally if they can show that they have established a period of residence in this country going back at least until 1982. This “amnesty” idea is based on the contention that it would be morally wrong and physically almost impossible to deport the millions of illegal aliens who have developed roots in this country.

But special treatment would be accorded to farm workers, because growers say the loss of their workers here illegally would devastate the agricultural economy. That means that illegal aliens now working in the fields, even those who have been here for only a relatively short time, could remain here legally.

Unlike the “guest worker” plan, the Berman-Panetta-Schumer compromise would not require the legalized aliens to remain in farm work if they feel they can get better jobs elsewhere in the United States. This means that the growers will have to improve wages and conditions to keep their workers. If they don’t, growers will not be able to again hire illegal aliens because they, like other employers, would be subject to heavy fines for using illegals.

If growers, labor and those already committed to immigration reform get behind the compromise, this nation may at last be able to regain control of its borders by penalizing employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens as a means of getting cheap labor.

ALRB Under the Knife

John F. Henning, head of the California AFL-CIO, is in something of a quandary. His son, Patrick, is a $72,400-a-year member of the California Agricultural Labor Relations Board. His job will be eliminated if Cesar Chavez’s United Farm Workers, an affiliate of Henning’s federation, succeeds in its effort to eliminate the ALRB’s $8.6-million annual budget.

In a jocular mood the other day, the union leader said he is torn between his “blood ties” to his son and his sworn duty as executive secretary of the state labor federation to support the farm workers’ union.

There isn’t much doubt what John Henning will do: His duty as a union leader will prevail. But his quandary probably won’t have much effect on the outcome of the argument over the ALRB’s budget anyway, because the state Legislature now seems likely to at least substantially reduce the budget, even if it does not eliminate it entirely.

As things stand, the Assembly budget subcommittee favors elimination of the budget on grounds that the agency, dominated by appointees of conservative Gov. George Deukmejian, is now so pro-grower and anti-union that it is no longer carrying out the original purpose of the law, which was to help farm workers unionize. And there are indications that the full Assembly will vote to cut the budget in half.

However, the Senate Budget Committee voted Monday in favor of the entire ALRB funding proposal.

It is not known how the full Senate will vote, but it seems clear that when the two houses resolve their differences in a conference, the result will be substantial cuts in the agency’s budget.

The reason that a significant cut is likely to come out of the Legislature is that the work of the ALRB has been dramatically reduced in recent months--by an estimated 50%--and so less money should be needed to keep the agency operating.

While John Henning was kidding about his “blood ties” to his son putting him in an ambivalent position on the issue, the growers have managed to confuse their own position on it, and without humor.

The Western Growers Assn., which represents most of California’s growers, recently wrote to state legislators saying that the present law is not a good one and so “we cannot . . . implicitly support a bad law” by supporting funding for it.

The association president, Daryl Arnold, concluded that therefore the association will support the funding of the ALRB “only if the state Legislature takes the further step” of bringing the state farm labor law into conformity with the federal labor law that is “a time-honored law, fair to both sides in the labor/management arena.”

Since the chances of the Democratic-dominated Legislature going along with the association’s demand are almost nil, that presumably meant that the growers have now joined the union in calling for elimination of the ALRB budget.

But association spokeswoman Barbara Buck insists that the seemingly clear language of the letter does not mean what it says. Growers, she said, are not actually opposed to continuation of the ALRB budget. Instead, it just means that they will not actively support it unless the state law is made to conform to the less-liberal federal law.

Nevertheless, the growers’ somewhat puzzling explanation of their position and the UFW’s opposition to the ALRB budget cannot help but weaken Deukmejian’s effort to win funding for the agency.