• printer friendly
• mail this article
• iPod format
• digg

Much of California’s agricultural workforce is undocumented, a chronic problem for both unions and growers that resulted in an unlikely bipartisan plan to legalize the workforce.

The Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits and Security Act of 2005, or AgJobs, would give undocumented agricultural workers across the nation the opportunity to apply for temporary resident status, and eventually earn legal permanent resident status.

The bill had a majority of 53 votes in the Senate in April, but fell short of the 60 votes necessary for it to pass. Proponents of the act say they will soon try again, hopefully before the end of the legislative year, and that AgJobs is a creative way to attack immigration issues.

“We need to find a way to understand and create a system where people who want to work can work, and where jobs can be filled by people who aren’t filling them here. This is one step forward,” said Karen Ross, president of the California Wine Growers Association.

“I think it’s very appropriate that it was the employer community and the employee community that said we both have much to gain by working together and much to lose by keeping the status quo,” Ross added.

According to the Farmworker Justice Fund Inc., a Washington, D.C.-based organization that works on issues of migrant labor, AgJobs would allow laborers who had worked in U.S. agriculture for at least 100 days between July 1, 2003 and Dec. 31, 2004 within a consecutive 12-month period to apply for temporary resident status.

After receiving temporary residence, laborers could work in any job up to six years, and then eventually apply for a green card if they qualified, according to the Farmworker Justice Fund Inc.

Growers and unions are supporting the bill, each finding benefits of a legalized workforce.

“Working as an undocumented person, it’s much, much easier to be exploited. A lot of workers feel compelled to stay quiet when there are injustices in the workplace,” said Diana Tellefson, national immigration reform field director for the United Farm Workers.

“(Undocumented workers are) important and they should be able ... to have the same types of worker protections that other workers in the U.S. have,” she said.

Howard Rosenberg, cooperative extension specialist at UC Berkeley, said the bill is beneficial for growers because they can have a legal workforce and not have to worry about workers hiding from immigration police.

Oftentimes growers need about 40 or 50 workers to perform a certain task immediately, and Rosenberg said it is important for growers to know those laborers will be there.

The Irvine-based Western Growers Association, which says its members are responsible for 50 percent of the nation’s total fresh produce production, also supports the bill.

Tim Chelling, WGA’s vice president of communications, said it was time for a change.

“The system is clearly broken,” he said.

“It is time to have something done to resolve the insanity of the current situation.”