FAN Stands in Solidarity Against the Agricultural Guestworker Act

The Farmworker Advocacy Network is one of over 200 coalitions, groups, and organizations that have recently signed a letter* opposing Representative Goodlatte’s Agricultural Guestworker Act, H.R. 1773, or the “Ag Act”. We believe this legislation could devastate our nation’s agricultural system and undermine core American values.

 As written in a recent FAN blog post, the Ag Act seeks to lower protections for farmworkers by stripping away decades of worker protections to leave guestworkers virtually no protection from abusive conditions. Employers will not need to verify adequate working conditions, wages or insurance coverage for injuries, thus eliminating oversight of worker’s rights. Additionally, guestworkers are offered no pathway to becoming permanent legal U.S. citizens. Instead they will be required to self-deport with the only the possibility of returning as a temporary guestworker. This would leave temporary workers in a highly vulnerable position to be exploited solely for their labor.

 As a coalition, we strongly oppose the Ag Act and believe it is an unworkable, anti-immigrant and anti- worker approach to our nation’s immigration problems. Hard-working farmworkers do not deserve to be relegated to a permanent 2nd class status apart from their families. As such, the Ag Act stands contrary to our nation’s core values of freedom, equality and family unity. Farmworkers have made invaluable contributions to our country, and they deserve protections that not only keep them safe but uphold their dignity as individuals and workers.

  View the letter opposing the Agricultural Guestworker Act

*This letter has already been sent to members of the House of Representatives, however individuals can still join FAN in saying "NO" to unfair and un-workable farmworker legislation by weighing-in with their members of Congress or by accessing the United Farm Workers action alert calling for immigration reform. 

The Ag Act: Congress Considers Turning Back the Clock to the Bracero Program

A bracero worker in the 1950's. Photo by APT.Somewhat lost this summer amidst all the conversation about comprehensive immigration reform is a little-known bill called the "Agricultural Guestworker Act" (or "Ag Act," HB 1773) that has already passed out of the House Judiciary Committee. This harmful bill is a thinly veiled attempt to strip farmworkers of the few rights they have on the job while propping up agribusinesses' bottom line.  

A farmworker in Eastern NC (2009). Photo by Peter Eversoll.

Here's how it works: the Ag Act would establish a new agricultural guestworker program allowing US companies to hire foreign-born workers for temporary employment in that industry. Under the current system employer certification is required, which builds in some worker protections. However, under the Ag Act, employers would only need to attest—on their on behalf, with no outside verification—that they have adequate workplace conditions, recruitment practices, wages, and insurance coverage for worker injuries. Workers would be allowed to move between employers without losing their visa. Also, 10% of a worker’s earnings would be withheld from their paycheck. The worker could only get this money from a U.S. embassy/consulate within 30 days of returning to their home country, and the worker must show they’ve followed program requirements. Furthermore, guestworkers under this bill would not be allowed to bring spouses or minor children under their visa. Finally, federal public benefits would not be available to guestworkers under the Ag Act.

We wanted workers but we got people. ~Max Frisch

Some of the Ag Act provisions are very similar to those in the infamous Bracero Program which exploited and abused 3 million temporary agricultural workers from the 1940s to the 1960s. If passed, the Ag Act would harm all workers by driving down wages, creating a second class of workers vulnerable to employer abuse, and providing reduced oversight of workers’ rights. Eligible workers would be denied access to cost-saving benefits under the Affordable Care Act as well as social welfare programs designed for those most in need. Most troubling is that guestworkers would not be allowed to become permanent legal U.S. residents, creating a class of workers exploited solely for their labor, held forever apart from being included as an equal in the country their labors serve.

-Download the fact sheet by American Friends Service Committee

Instead of adopting the more reasonable Senate bill framework that includes the "Ag-Jobs" compromise (an agreement between agribusiness and farmworkers that would allow farmworkers to get on an accelerated path to citizenship), the Ag Act will harm one of the most vulnerable working populations in the U.S. Apparently, we want the cheap labor that farmworkers provide without acknowledging the whole person - family unity, protections on the job, a safety net for hard times. Farmworkers do backbreaking work, often in deplorable conditions, and they deserve to be treated with dignity. Congress shouldn't turn the clock back on them now.

"God Made a Farmer" - But What About Farmworkers?

Originally published by the North Carolina Council of Churches: www.ncchurches.org/2013/02/god-made-a-farmer-but-what-about-farmworkers

As I watched the Super Bowl with my family on Sunday night, one ad stood out. It was the beautiful slideshow of farmers, accompanied by the eloquent words of the late Paul's Harvey's speech entitled "God Made a Farmer." The ad was a moving tribute, evoking powerful emotions while praising the often unrewarding daily labor of farming.

Here's an excerpt from Harvey's words:

"God said, 'I need somebody willing to get up before dawn, milk cows, work all day in the fields, milk cows again, eat supper, then go to town and stay past midnight at a meeting of the school board.' So God made a farmer."

Again, it was a beautiful - almost haunting - two minutes. But why were all the farmers white? Why didn't the ad depict the reality of farmworkers, the millions of men and women whose hard labor makes possible the abundance on our plates?

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers Responds

A recent story about "God Made a Farmer" by the Coalition of Immokalee Workers highlights this disconnect and why it's wrong:

The vision of rural America at the heart of the ad -- the visual definition of the farmer God made that is the subject of the two minute poem -- is, almost without exception, monochrome as can be. Out of 21 images of people representing farmers, 19 are white, one is African American, one is Latino...

Today, the vast majority of physical labor done on the vast majority of commercial fruit and vegetable farms in this country is done by farmworkers -- the vast, vast majority of whom are not white. There are more than 3 million farmworkers toiling on farms in rural communities from California to Florida and everywhere in between, yet, in an ad extolling the virtues of farm work, the people who work on farms are almost nowhere to be found.

It is not wrong to extol the labor, daily sacrifices, and invaluable contribution to American life of our nation's farmworkers. It is wrong to paint farmworkers white in order to do so.

The reality is that farmworkers pick the food we eat, and most of those workers are immigrant workers whose backbreaking labor -- the selfsame noble labor exalted in the ad's moving words -- is systematically underpaid and underappreciated. If the words read so powerfully by Paul Harvey are able to reach deep inside of us and move us to buy a truck, they should be powerful enough to move us to reward the work of our country's 3 million farmworkers and provide a living wage and dignified working conditions in return for their virtuous labor.

God Made a Farmer, and Farmworkers Too

God Made a Farmer, and Farmworkers Too. Photo by Peter Eversoll.

The lack of farmworkers in the ad is frankly a stunning omission, and it highlights the challenges that face farmworkers today. Farmworkers are routinely ignored in the policy debates that affect their lives. And it turns out that even tributes to hard work on farms, like the "God Made a Farmer" ad, fail to honor the contributions of farmworkers. It's up to us to help turn the tide. It's time we recognize that God made farmers and God made farmworkers too.

Got food? Thank a farmworker.

-Chris Liu-Beers, Program Associate

Immigration Reform and Farmworkers

Last week, President Obama and members of Congress have been laying out their principles for comprehensive immigration reform. Millions of families' lives hang in the balance, including farmworkers across the country. Our food system relies heavily on an undocumented, marginalized workforce to provide the necessary labor for growing fruits and vegetables. It's vital that any serious reform include provisions for protecting all workers - including farmworkers - from discrimination and unfair treatment. Farmworkers should be included along with all other immigrants in the roadmap to citizenship. 

Bruce Goldstein, President of Farmworker Justice, made the following statement:

With the announcement yesterday of a bipartisan group of Senators and today’s speech by President Obama, momentum is building to pass immigration reform that includes a roadmap to citizenship.

Our nation depends on the hard labor of farmworkers to cultivate and harvest our crops. Meanwhile, the majority of these workers live in poverty, unable to afford the very fruits and vegetables they harvest. Immigration reform is desperately needed to empower farmworkers to improve their wages and working conditions, as the majority lack immigration status.

Farmworker Justice welcomes the President’s commitment to passing immigration reform. We will encourage the President and Congress to promote immigration policies that enable current and future farmworkers to attain a roadmap to citizenship. To ensure fair treatment of farmworkers and our nation’s food security, we will continue to advocate for equal labor protections for farmworkers in any immigration reform.

Getting Children Out of the Fields

New immigration policies could help undocumented farmworker youth

By Griselda Casillas, Toxic Free NC 2012 Farm Worker Outreach Intern

Last month President Obama announced new deportation policies stating that undocumented immigrants under age 30, who came to the US before age 16, and who are currently in school or have graduated from high school or earned a GED, are not to be deported. Also, those young undocumented immigrants who qualify can apply for two-year work permits that will allow them to work in the United States legally.

This policy change will affect the lives of many young undocumented farmworkers, who often work long hours in the fields of North Carolina in order to feed the nation.  

Agricultural work is classified as one of the three most dangerous occupations in the United States because of the many dangers workers are exposed to that put their lives at risk. Those dangers include constant exposure to pesticides, green tobacco sickness, heat stress, musculoskeletal injuries and many other health problems.

In North Carolina, children are legally permitted to work in the fields at the early age of 12, though recent field investigations have discovered children much younger than 10 filling up buckets of blueberries to help their families make more money in order to put food on their table.

Children are the most vulnerable farm workers because their bodies are still developing.  They have a higher chance of dying from a work-related incident in the fields than an adult. The pesticide exposure they receive comes with short-term effects like nausea, vomiting, cramping and itchy/burning eyes, breathing difficulty, as well as long-term effects such as cancer, miscarriage, memory loss and depression.

Teen farm workers talk about their experiences working around pesticides in the fields of North Carolina. Video courtesy of Toxic Free NC.”

A majority of the time children and adults are not informed about the dangers of pesticide exposure, or their rights in the field. They are not often notified whether the fields have been recently sprayed.  Farmworkers, especially youth, may not have been told what procedures they should follow to protect themselves, or what to do if they get sick from exposure to pesticides.    

On top of that, many undocumented children and teenagers have limited access to medical care.  This means that if they are injured or become ill on the job, they’re less likely than other children to receive proper treatment and care.

Due to work-related illness, family stress and sheer exhaustion, farmworker children are also more likely to perform poorly in school and are at greater risk of dropping out of school.  Many undocumented farm worker youth lose motivation to complete high school when they learn that it will likely be impossible for them to go on to college.

The Obama administration’s new deportation policy enacted last week will help young undocumented immigrants, including those who work in the field, to find jobs that don’t put their lives at risk. The two-year work permits will allow many farmworker youth to seek jobs that typically require proof of citizenship or residency, for the first time in their lives. Under this policy, undocumented youth will also be able to apply for drivers’ licenses and other types of documentation that are currently unavailable to them.

This policy will help young farmworkers to improve their lives in several concrete ways. They can get out of field work and seek jobs in other occupations that don’t expose them to pesticides, extreme heat, heavy lifting and harmful repetitive motion stress. They can seek higher paying jobs that will allow them to provide meaningful help to their families and save money for college, breaking the cycle of poverty.

With the possibility of legal residency, youth will be encouraged to perform better in school and pursue a college education after high school.

Perhaps most importantly, though, the implementation of this policy will mean that undocumented farmworker youth no longer have to live in fear, and that’s a very welcome change.

"Uprooted Innocence" featured on "The State of Things"

Photo by Joe Wolf

Did you know that almost half a million children work in agriculture in the U.S.?

Emily Drakage with the Children in the Fields campaign and Catherine Bittar, a Duke University student who helped produce the short documentary "Uprooted Innocence" talk about the reality of child labor with WUNC's "The State of Things."

• Listen to "The State of Things"
• Watch "Uprooted Innocence"
• Take action with the Harvest of Dignity Campaign

Independent Weekly Highlights Child Labor in NC

Last week, the Independent Weekly published an excellent article on the realities faced by children working in the agricultural industry in North Carolina.

The reporter interviewed several members of the Farmworker Advocacy Network, including the NC Justice Center attorney Carol Brooke and Emily Drakage from Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs' Children in the Fields Campaign. Here's an excerpt:

While the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 sets the minimum working age at 14, the law allows children ages 12–14 to work in the agricultural industry as accompanied minors or with parental consent. According to Carol Brooke, a lawyer with the NC Justice Center specializing in child labor laws and policy, it is legal in North Carolina for children as young as 10 to be a paid employee in agriculture. They can work as long as 14 hours a day.

The law hasn't been touched since 1938, says Emily Drakage, a regional director at the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs and co-founder of NC FIELD. At the time, U.S. agriculture was based on family farms, not agribusiness.

Nearly 75 years later, Drakage says, the law "does not reflect the current realities of industrial agriculture. There is a big difference between working for your dad who is a farmer, and a farmworker."

You can read the full article, share it and comment on it here. Many thanks to the Indy for giving this issue the attention it deserves!

Indy Weekly Notes Appalling Conditions in NC Fields

Earlier this month, the Independent Weekly did a feature-length story on farmworker conditions, especially in North Carolina’s tobacco fields. With the insight of a new report issued jointly by the Farm Labor Organizing Committee and Oxfam America, the public is learning more and more about the deplorable conditions in the fields that make possible huge agribusiness profits. Here’s an excerpt from the article:

We found shocking pieces in all of those different categories. We've seen some pretty bad conditions, but this was the first time that we were able to really take an in-depth, personal look and hear from the workers in a very detailed way about a lot of the abuses," says FLOC representative Briana Connors, who helped write the report and conduct 86 farmworker interviews.

In another Wilson County camp, I spoke with a group of teenage workers from Guatemala. The young men opened a flimsy wooden door to reveal a cramped, flea-infested space with unfinished particleboard flooring and old mattresses void of sheets, bedding or pillows, their corners black with mold. According to the report, when some workers complained about bedbugs, their growers allegedly told them to buy Clorox and bleach their mattresses, or to spray the mattresses, and themselves, with Raid.

Similar complaints were filed with the North Carolina Department of Labor (DOL), according to farmworker accounts in the report, which stated the agency initially investigated them but did not follow up.

Continue reading the story and download the report here. You can also learn more about a recent complaint filed against the NCDOL for not enforcing existing laws on the books that are meant to protect farmworkers.