The
immigration policies of the U.S. government are once again igniting
opposition. There are about 2.5 million farmworkers in the
U.S., about three quarters of whom were born outside the country.
Half are undocumented and the rest are visa holders or people born in
the U.S. Last year growers were certified to bring in 242,762 H-2A
workers – a tenth of the total workforce and a number that in just
four years has increased from 139,832. At
the same time as H-2A employment is rising, deportations are
increasing. The Trump administration deported 256,000 people in 2018,
just slightly more than the number of people brought to the U.S.
under H-2A visas. In theory, growers have to advertise for local
workers first, and can only bring in guest workers if none are
available.
According
to Rosalinda Guillen, director of Community to Community, a farm
worker organizing and advocacy group. “...we’ve seen a big
increase in growers’ use of the H-2A guest worker program in the
last few years, and it’s had a huge impact on working conditions in
the fields. We’ve had to feed guest workers who come to us hungry,
fight to get them paid their wages, and help them deal with extreme
work requirements. At the same time, our local workers find they’re
not being hired for jobs they’ve done for many seasons...The Trump
administration is targeting our local community, deporting people who
have been living here for years,” she charged. “Then growers
complain there aren’t enough workers, and begin using the H-2A
program to bring in guest workers. It is a vicious revolving door of
exploitation.”
The
H-2A program has its roots in the notorious “bracero” program,
which brought workers from Mexico in extremely exploitative
conditions starting in 1942. At its height in 1954 about 450,000
workers were brought in by growers, and in the same year over a
million people were deported – the same “vicious revolving door”
described by Guillen. Although the program was abolished in 1964, the
H-2 visa on which it was based was never eliminated. In 1986 an
organized farm labor importation program began again, and the H-2A
visa was created. It has been growing ever since.
Pressure
to work harder and faster is permitted by the U.S. Department of
Labor, often written into the certifications that allow growers to
import workers.Trump, despite his otherwise violent
anti-immigrant rhetoric. At a Michigan rally in February, 2018, he
told supporters, “For the farmers it’s going to get really
good.We have to have strong borders, but we have to let your workers
in…We’re gonna let them in because you need them.… We have to
have them.”
On
July 26 this year, the U.S. Department of Labor proposed rule changes
for the H-2A program to make it cheaper and easier for growers to
use. The new rule changes would
make it easier for growers to recruit H-2A workers without offering
the jobs to farmworkers already living locally, who are almost all
immigrants themselves and mostly undocumented. The relaxed rules
already allow multiple growers to cooperate in recruiting a group of
H-2A workers, and to move them from job to job. That makes it easy
for a contractor like to bring in a crew and move them from ranch to
ranch, job to job, without ever offering those jobs to local
farmworkers. The U.S. Department of Labor proposal would allow
growers to self-inspect housing for H-2A workers. There are many
legal cases documenting terrible housing. 10 percent of farmworkers
who are Washington residents live outdoors in a car or in a tent, and
20 percent live in garages, shacks, or “in places not intended to
serve as bedrooms.” Growers now have to pay the transportation
costs of H-2A workers from their homes to the place where they’ll
be working. In the future, they would only have to pay transportation
from the border or the place where the workers get their visa,
relieving growers of about $80 million in expenses per year, forcing
the H-2A workers themselves to pay it.
According
to Farmworker Justice, a farm worker advocacy group, “The Trump
Administration seeks to guarantee agribusiness unlimited access to a
captive workforce that is deprived of economic bargaining power and
the right to vote. The Administration would transform the farm labor
force of roughly 2.4 million people into a workforce of 21st-century
indentured servants.”
The
United Farm Workers condemned the proposed changes as well. “If
Trump’s H-2A rules-changing scheme happens,” a union statement
predicted, “there would be a huge negative impact on those
currently working in agriculture. This scheme would deprive U.S.
citizens and lawful permanent residents of job opportunities by
weakening the laws that require U.S. citizens and legal residents to
be offered these jobs first…This drastic move could replace local
U.S. workers with foreign H-2A workers.”
Growers
complained they faced a labor shortage and needed greater freedom to
use H-2A workers. Familias Unidas por la Justicia’s president Ramon
Torres responded that they themselves were guilty of causing any
alleged shortage. Before the explosive growth of the H-2A program, a
large part of Washington’s farm labor force consisted of people who
live in California, and come north for work during the harvest
season. “Who do growers think was harvesting their fruit all those
years before H-2A?” he asked.
“In
the last few years when those workers call they find out that the
jobs and housing have been filled by H-2A workers,” Torres charged.
“They have no alternative but to look for work elsewhere. Workers
aren’t stupid. The more the H-2A program grows, the more the
message goes out to the traditional workers that there’s no work
for them. But if growers decide to give them back their jobs, those
workers will come back, especially if the wages are good and there’s
a union.”
The
worker shortage has caused many farmers to raise the pay for workers
– often more than doubling their salaries.
https://truthout.org/articles/farmworkers-rise-up-against-trump-and-labor-exploitation/
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