The Nation : Chavez Steps Up Fight on Foreign Labor

Cesar Chavez, president of the United Farm Workers of America, said that his organization was stepping up its battle against growers’ use of foreign workers, charging that claims of labor shortages were fictitious. Chavez presided over the UFW’s biennial convention in McAllen, Tex., in the heavily agricultural lower Rio Grande Valley. The UFW will continue to fight the H-2A provision of the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, under which agricultural employers may bring in foreign workers if they can certify that a labor shortage exists, Chavez said. Five hundred delegates of the 2,000-member Texas organization passed a resolution calling for the UFW to file suits against the Immigration and Naturalization Service, the Department of Labor, the Texas Employment Commission and agriculture companies to ensure that labor shortages are certified under H-2A applications. In its resolution, the UFW cited unemployment rates of between 13% and 40% along the border in South Texas, where many of the migrant farm workers keep residences.