 |
|
|
 Editorials | Opinions | October 2007 
Legal Farm Workforce a Memory and a Dream
 Don Curlee - Visalia Times-Delta
go to original
Without having talked to all 80,000 of California's farmers it can't be known, but it's a good bet that very few if any of them have ever hired illegal workers because they were illegal.
The better assumption is that they hired them because they were available, willing and reliable and presented themselves as legal residents of the country.
Some of the discussions and reactions in recent weeks regarding immigration reform have intimated that California farmers and employers in several other industries purposely sought workers who entered the country illegally. The reasoning: such workers labored in constant fear of exposure and expulsion, and consequently demanded little or nothing.
The record, which has scarcely been cited, reveals otherwise. As early as 1986 California growers went to great lengths to help undocumented workers embark on a path toward citizenship. Grower organizations interviewed and qualified upwards of 50,000 workers and steered them toward legalization in a year long effort.
That activity occurred under the legislation known as the Simpson-Mazzoli Immigration Reform Act. It was a kind of early day amnesty that encouraged workers to come forward, sign up and begin a journey toward citizenship. Thousands who responded went on to become citizens and have been enjoying the benefits of citizenship ever since.
Several agricultural organizations in California banded together to maintain offices for long hours where workers could sign up and become legal residents. In Delano, a grower organization steered thousands of workers through the process at no charge.
Nationally, an even larger effort was conducted by Catholic Charities, which processed more than one million workers.
One of the significant benefits of signing up was that workers were not required to continue employment in agriculture. As legal residents they could choose to work where, when and for whom they preferred.
Surprisingly, the United Farmworkers union, which signed on in support of the program, managed to process only about 5,000 workers in what many growers perceived a half-hearted effort at best. A vice president of the union even sat as a member of the national policy board that steered the program.
Earlier of course, in a program popular in the '50s and first half of the '60s, Mexican workers were transported to California agricultural locations, housed and employed in what was called the bracero program. A major advantage was its stipulation that workers returned to Mexico when work ended.
Sensitivity by do-gooders and impressionable legislators led to the demise of that program. Growers who lived through it often reminisce about its efficiency, lament its discontinuance and long for its rebirth. They are painfully aware that they will never see anything as practical and efficient again.
The concern by farmers is for more than what might have been. As politicians, federal agencies, an array of opinion leaders and Joe Taxpayer all scramble to unravel the immigration and border protection issue, they wonder if anything positive will result in the present.
Will political maneuvering and governmental tinkering ensure enough legal workers to handle another season of harvesting, planting, pruning, irrigating, weeding, feeding, milking, hauling, packing and handling?
Farmers in California are wondering — all 80,000 of them — as well as millions more in dozens of other industries.
Don Curlee is a freelance writer who specializes in agricultural issues. Write to him at Don Curlee-Public Relations, 457 Armstrong Ave., Clovis, CA 93612. |
| |
|
Vallarta Weddings
Tell a Friend
Site Map
Print this Page
Email Us