BACKGROUND

Current efforts in Congress to enact a new agricultural guest worker program are based on the producers' claims of a tight labor market for seasonal workers. This legislative effort flies in the face of about a decade's worth of government and academic research data that has established that there is not only a surplus of agricultural workers in the United States, but that a tight labor market is exactly what is needed to improve wages and working conditions for the rural poor who live in poverty.

The Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) of 1986 was opposed by agricultural interests because the employer sanctions against hiring illegal aliens adopted in that law were perceived as likely to end the supply of illegal aliens and financially ruin the producers. To ease their fears, a provision was adopted in the law that allowed for a supply of "replenishment agricultural workers" (RAW) to be admitted if a labor shortage were found to exist. To determine whether a shortage was arising, the Department of Labor set up a National Agricultural Worker Survey (NAWS), and a national bipartisan Commission on Agricultural Workers (CAW) was created to study the data and recommend to Congress whether to open the door for the RAW program.

The CAW completed its study and reported to Congress on February 17, 1993 that there was an oversupply of farm labor. The new employers sanction measures had failed to deter the influx of illegal aliens and the surplus of labor was condemning agricultural workers to continue to toil in deteriorating wage and worksite environmental conditions. All governmental and non- partisan reports since that time have echoed the same conclusion. The blue-ribbon, national, non-partisan Commission on Immigration Reform, for example, called in 1994 for "enhanced enforcement efforts targeted at farm labor and other contractors who hire unauthorized workers on behalf of agricultural growers and other businesses." According to the executive director of the California Institute for Rural Studies "In terms of constant dollars, there's been a significant decline in wages, we think by over 25 percent, over the last 20 years."(New York Times, March 31, 1997)

THE CYCLE OF POVERTY

An argument is made that foreign agricultural workers are needed because Americans will not do this hard work. That has a ring of truth because most of the seasonal agricultural workers are aliens legally or illegally in the country or former illegal alien agricultural workers who gained legal status in the amnesty adopted as part of the IRCA legislation. Yet, it would be myopic to look at a current snapshot of farm labor today and conclude that current conditions are inevitable.

Agricultural investors make decisions on what crops to plant on the basis of whether they expect to be able to harvest the crop and whether the crop will be remunerative. Naturally the producers benefit from the lowest possible labor costs. It is only natural that foreign workers, who can earn at home only a fraction of what they can earn in the United States will readily take jobs that would be unattractive to American workers. Studies have shown that the real earnings of agricultural workers have dropped over the past decade -- a clear demonstration of a labor surplus, not a shortage.

Over time, as the number of illegal alien agricultural workers has increased, and as wages have decreased, the attractiveness of employment in this sector to poor American workers has decreased. The availability of alternatives, such as welfare assistance, can only be pointed to as one factor contributing to this trend, not the cause of it.

Similarly, if the supply of cheap, illegal foreign labor were cut off, it would not mean the collapse of agricultural producers or skyrocketing costs to the American consumer. First, it should be noted that labor-intensive agricultural crops represent a small share of the overall production of crops. Secondly, studies have documented that the labor costs of production of even those crops that are labor-dependent represent a small share of the retail price. A 1996 study by an Iowa State agricultural economist concluded that "The removal of illegal workers from the seasonal agricultural workforce would increase the summer-fall supermarket prices of fresh fruits and vegetables by about 6 percent in the short run and 3 percent in the intermediate term." During winter-spring seasons, the cost increase from relying on our native labor force and legal temporary workers would be only about half as much.

FINDINGS OF THE U.S. COMMISSION ON AGRICULTURAL WORKERS (CAW)

According to Dr. Monica Heppel, a professor of anthropology at Mount Vernon College and Research Director for the CAW, writing in the summer 1993 issue of SCOPE, the journal of the Center for Immigration Studies,"The overarching factor within the Commission's research findings was the current oversupply of agricultural labor in the United States." Heppel explained the reasons for the labor surplus despite the expansion of labor-intensive agriculture in the following terms:

• "Stagnating or deteriorating wages and working conditions for seasonal farmworkers;
• High levels of underemployment;
• An increase in the use of farm labor contractors;
• A rise in internal labor migration;
• Increased settlement of farmworkers and the 'latinization of rural America; and
• A strong pattern of cyclical migration whereby workers are employed seasonally in the United states but spend several months of the year in Mexico."

The recommendations of the CAW, wrote Heppel, included a call for the development of a better employment eligibility and identification system, including a fraud-proof work authorization document for all persons legally authorized to work in the United States. The CAW also recommended that the RAW, the foreign worker replenishment program be allowed to lapse without ever having been activated. This, it was assumed at the time sealed the door on the efforts of agricultural producers to leave the door open for large numbers of new foreign agricultural workers without regard for their effect on agricultural workers already in the country.

FAIR'S POSITION

FAIR has supported the recommendations of the CAW and the later Commission on Immigration Reform in their advocacy of an improved system of verifiable worker identification. This is the key missing element to deterring illegal immigration by denying jobs to those who would come and attempt to stay illegally. This position, like the national commissions' recommendations is based on several aspects of the problem.

• One is the problem of assuring work opportunities to the over one million agricultural workers who were converted from illegal workers to legal immigrants by the 1986 IRCA amnesty. By making these persons legal residents, Congress also made them eligible for welfare and other public assistance programs. Like refugees, the Congress made the American taxpayer the "sponsor" of these immigrants. If they are unable to find work, and must resort to foodstamps or other assistance, it is the American taxpayer who must cover the costs. It is, therefore, in the public interest that these agricultural workers continue to have work available. Similarly, for reasons of social justice as well as self-interest, the taxpayer should want to see improving wages and working conditions for agricultural workers.
• Another reason for supporting tight labor conditions in seasonal agriculture is that by improving wages, there will be less interest in leaving this field of work for jobs in the service sector. In a seriously misguided program, the U.S. Department of Labor (DoL) sponsors job skills programs for agricultural workers to help them qualify for better- paying jobs in the service sector. All that this appears to accomplish is to create increased job opportunities for more illegal alien workers. A portion of these workers end up joining the permanent illegal alien population of the country. The DoL effort makes no sense as long as there is no successful deterrence against illegal alien workers through worksite screening, and the channelling of all temporary foreign agricultural workers into legal channels with safeguards for American labor.
• Finally, the current situation, which would be aggravated by a new temporary farmworker system, has not only demographic effects of fueling population growth, but it also contributes to the growing income disparity in the United States between the wealthy and the poor and fuels the growth of the population living in poverty, including sizable numbers of children.

REFERENCES:

1. Poverty Amid Prosperity: Immigration and the Changing Face of Rural California, 1997, J. Edward Taylor, Philip Martin and Michael Fix, Urban Institute Press, Washington, DC.
   How Much Is That Tomato in the Window?: Retail Produce Prices without Illegal Farmworkers, February, 1996, Wallace Huffman and Alan McCunn, Center for Immigration Studies, Washington, DC.
2. Alternative to Immigrant Labor?: Raisin Industry Tests New Harvesting Technology, June, 1997, Bert Mason, R. Keith Striegler and Gregory T. Berg, Center for Immigration Studies, Washington, DC.
3. The Adverse Impact of Immigration on Florida's Farmworkers, November, 1989, D. Marshall Barry, Center for Labor Research and Studies, Florida State University, Miami, Florida.

Updated 8/98