Growers, Needing Help, Seek ‘Perishable’ Status
Are honey bees perishable goods? How about cotton and earthworms? Christmas trees, wool, tobacco? Arundo donax ?
The people who grow these products think they should be, and they are aggressively lobbying the Agriculture Department to be included on the list of those growing “perishable commodities.”
The reason: only those growers will be counted as qualifying employers for illegal alien agricultural employees who can seek legal status under the landmark immigration law, starting in June.
“Everybody thinks they’re ‘perishable,’ ” said an Agriculture Department official who has sifted through the requests.
Letters Stack Up
Indeed, every growing product imaginable has been touted as a “perishable commodity” in a thick stack of letters on file at the Agriculture Department.
The producers of Arundo donax were so concerned that they had a Los Angeles law firm write a seven-page letter, complete with bibliography, asserting that unless the California product--a reed used in musical instruments--is declared perishable, foreign workers will not be available and the growers will have to watch their crop “slowly but irrevocably rot before harvest.”
The issue of who gets “perishable” status involves enormous stakes. The Immigration and Naturalization Service has estimated that 100,000 farm workers will apply for legal status under the immigration law this year and 200,000 next year.
$142-Billion Industry
The American Farm Bureau Federation estimates that as many as 500,000 illegal immigrants work on the nation’s 2 million farms. And the nation’s cash receipts from farm products totaled $142 billion in 1985, with California’s $14 billion leading all states.
If a grower’s product is not declared to be on the perishable list, illegal immigrants working for him would be ineligible for legal status in the program for undocumented agricultural workers.
Beginning June 1, illegal immigrants who were employed in farm work in the United States at least 90 days during the year ending last May can apply for legal status. This is separate from the law’s overall amnesty program, which allows non-farm workers to apply if they have lived in the country since before January, 1982.
Would Get Exemption
Under the law, growers who are determined to be handling perishables will be exempt from employer sanctions until Dec. 1, 1988--18 months after the sanctions begin for other employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants after Nov. 6, 1987.
Also, the list of growers of perishable commodities would be the basis for the Labor and Agriculture departments to jointly determine how many illegal seasonal workers would be allowed to enter the country each year if shortages of such workers exist.
Not surprisingly, letters are pouring in at the Agriculture Department from around the country--from individual farmers, farm groups, senators, congressmen and lawyers. And lobbyists are busy on the phones and in the halls.
“We’re working feverishly to help employers assist these people in getting legalized,” said C. H. Fields, assistant director of national affairs at the farm bureau. “We want them to make that definition as broad as they can.”
Uncertainty Prevails
Most fruit and vegetable crops are expected to be covered but, after that, no one is certain.
In the letters, persuasion efforts rise to an art form.
One example is a handwritten letter from a grower in Ripon, Calif., arguing for almonds. The letter says that they must be harvested promptly “or the worms will eat them or they may spoil if subjected to too much rain.”
The Colorado Wool Growers Assn. reminded the department that “grass-fat lambs lose their bloom if not shipped at the proper time.”
On Capitol Hill, Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) wrote about “an urgent matter facing the turkey industry,” asserting that “turkey hatching eggs are very fragile.” The senator also reminded Agriculture Secretary Richard E. Lyng that “more than 90%” of these eggs “come from your home state of California.”
Want Broad Definition
In addition to the growers, advocates for the immigrants also would like to see the broadest definition of perishables. Kristine Poplawski of the Farmworker Justice Fund, said: “The more people you cover under the special agriculture program, the more you allow people to get their rights, such as minimum wage and safe working conditions.”
Nevertheless, a decision has been delayed at the Agriculture Department, and officials are uncertain now exactly when it will come.
And even after the definition comes out, the public will be given a comment period. An Agriculture official said: “That’s when the input will really start.”
