White House Accused of Blocking Plan for Aid to Migrant Workers

Farm worker advocates charged Tuesday that the White House bowed to farm employer pressure two years ago and blocked a comprehensive plan by then-Labor Secretary Elizabeth Hanford Dole to improve “deplorable” conditions of migrant farm workers.

Aides who worked on the 152-page plan--a copy of which was provided to The Times--confirmed that political considerations helped block its main recommendation: a series of “concentrated, high-visibility enforcement strikes” to uncover wage and health violations on farms throughout the country.

However, a spokesman for current Labor Secretary Lynn Martin contended that 25 of 35 major items in the plan have been or are being implemented and that an additional seven are under study. The spokesman, assistant secretary Steven I. Hofman, said investigators have conducted raids, including some in California. But he said he did not have time to provide details about execution of the Dole plan.

Farm worker advocates strongly disputed Hofman’s statement, charging that the government has done little to rectify the problems of migrant workers.

Dole sent her plan to the White House in July, 1990. She said in an accompanying memo that she was “about to implement” her initiative because “I have personally witnessed the deplorable living and working conditions of some migrant farm workers . . . I was shocked and deeply moved.”

The plan’s main thrust was to deploy Labor Department “strike forces” to investigate violations in carefully targeted areas.

Three months after sending her plan forward, Dole resigned to head the American Red Cross, partly in frustration over the White House’s rejection of the migrant worker initiative, sources said. An aide said Tuesday that Dole was unavailable for comment.