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Issues: Immigration Reform

Guest Worker Program Essential in Immigration Reform

By Bryan Silbermann, President, Produce Marketing Association and Tom Nassif, President, Western Growers Association

This guest column appeared in the March 27, 2006 issue of The Packer.

Immigration reform is the hottest domestic issue to face our nation in many years. The volatility and vitriol of this issue can be seen by turning to the editorial pages of any major newspaper. Few subjects have generated such a range of emotions from all corners.  Somewhere in this red hot debate, however, the needs of our industry and the consuming public are being forgotten. The stakes are enormous. Everyone in our industry, growers, shippers, farm workers, contractors, everyone along the entire supply chain, could have their lives changed by some of the draconian immigration reforms now being considered in Washington.

The U.S. Senate is poised to take up immigration reform on March 27. One starting point is the enforcement-only bill the House passed last December. That legislation would turn growers into police and immigration officers and essentially cut off our labor supply. It would also make criminals out of those who violated the provisions of this legislation.  Another alternative is a bill being developed by the Senate Judiciary Committee that might or might not address agriculture’s needs. There are other bills out there as well, some of which address the needs of agriculture, such as the AgJOBS bill that the industry, including PMA, WG, and many others have supported. The point is, Congress is coming closer each day to acting on legislation which will affect all of us.

It is essential that the fresh produce industry be heard on this issue so that we can have access to the seasonal and year-round labor we need to harvest, pack, and distribute the fresh fruits and vegetables consumers enjoy and need.

Here are some basic facts:

• Today, an estimated 70% of the farm labor force in the United States lacks proper legal status.
• The only available safety net is a 50-year-old flawed guest worker program known as H-2A, which currently provides only two percent of the farm labor force.
• A recent survey, by the American Farm Bureau Federation, conservatively projects that the loss of the workforce from an enforcement-only bill (like the one passed by the House) would result in U.S. fruit and vegetable production falling $5 billion to $9 billion annually in the short term and $6.5 billion to $12 billion in the long term, with impacts in other production sectors reaching upward of $8 billion.
• That survey also showed that three to four jobs in the upstream and downstream economy are generated by each farm worker job, so more than 1 million U.S. jobs are actually at risk.
• Reducing available labor will increase produce prices and reduce consumption of fresh fruits and vegetables which would undercut the government’s own efforts of encouraging consumption.

We, as an industry, want and need legal and sufficient labor to maintain production and distribution in this thriving industry. That labor supply requires guest workers from outside our border. Without that labor supply, many growers will not be able to operate in the United States. They will move to foreign soil, where the workforce is legal, or they will go out of business. That is a fact.   

To avert a disaster in our industry, it is essential that the Senate pass a bill that ensures growers and producers access to a legal workforce. The conference committee that will address the differences between the Senate and House bills must then retain that access.

It’s that simple.

On March 15, nearly 300 people from the produce, nursery, landscaping, and dairy industry marched on Washington D.C. to make their voices heard. We hope that those in the Senate and the House who hold our futures in their hands heard those voices. We need more people to join the chorus. We need your voice right now. You can help.

Contact your Senators today. You can do so through PMA’s Advocacy Action Center at www.pma.com or through WG’s Grassroots Action Center at www.wga.com. Help persuade your senators and members of congress that we need immigration reform with a strong guest-worker program right now.