The Politics of Produce

By Rick Compton

The topic of agricultural labor has never been pretty. Decades ago, during the industry's dark ages, Florida agriculture took bad raps from everyone from Edward R. Murrow to Geraldo Rivera. The workers were allegedly disadvantaged, underpaid and too often abused. A combination of social pressure, reforms and a new generation of growers have changed an industry.

Today, the coin has turned. Some of the "Harvest of Shame" rhetoric hangs on, but according to the United States Department of Agriculture (http://usda.mannlib.cornell.edu/), cash wages for field workers average 38 percent above the legal minimum wage, and housing is often free.

Each year, each agricultural grower must make a decision: Should s/he commit the $1.2 million per 100-acres it takes to grow food? Surely, each grower considers the risks of freezes, disease and pestilence. To some degree, these obstacles can be factored into forecasts, or mitigated with up-to-the-minute farming practices.

But now, due to technology, politics and well-intentioned social activism, the investment that may survive bad weather, fruit flies and canker, may finally come to rot on the ground because no one could be found to pick, process or pack the investment off to market.

At risk is the agricultural workforce itself, the 16,000 seasonal workers that come here as early as late fall, and work here as late as April or May. According to growers, academics and industry professionals, three-fourths of the agricultural workforce is at risk of employment disqualification, and the remaining one-fourth is at risk of being bought away.

Double Trouble

"It's a mess we got here," says Tom Heber, chair of labor relations for Gulf Citrus Growers Association, a sugar and orange grower, and vice-president of human resources for U.S. Sugar.

He says it's unlike any other business. "If you manufacture widgets and don't like the labor supply, you move," Heber points out. "But if you own the land, you're stuck."

The problem is two-headed, according to Ron Hamel, Gulf Citrus' executive director.

"One, we have a very tight unemployment rate," he says, and cites competition for workers from other labor intensive industries such as construction, landscaping and the hospitality industry. "There is a lot of pressure from growing industries."

The second problem he lists -- the one with the greater potential damage to the worker supply -- is the availability of sufficient workers from off-shore. They make up as much as 80 percent of the agricultural workers here. "We have seen a decline in the number of U.S. domestic workers who want to do harvesting," Hamel says. "It's physically demanding work. It seems there are less and less individuals wanting to do that."

In March of this year, a couple of dozen farmworkers took their cause to the streets in a 230-mile march. The foundation issue was pay. According to publicity flyers, the workers complain that the $8,500 each tomato worker might earn in a year is is too low. Hamel feels this is a classic case of information being used out of context.

"You hear [that] farm workers are making $8,000 or $9000 a year," he says. "It always sounds low." Tomatoes are not harvested year-round, but only during a part of each year.

"If they could be [working this as] an annual job, the numbers would not sound that low. The problem is that we are not picking fruit 12-months a year."

Dr. Fritz Roka is an assistant professor of agriculture economics for the University of Florida and works at the Southwest Florida Research and Education Center. He explains the workforce problem in scientific terms.

"A couple of demographic changes have occurred," he reports. "The work force is younger, there is a higher percent of single men, a higher percent that migrate, and a lower percent that claim to be U.S. residents." In comparisons to 20-years ago, he has discovered that twice the proportion of today's workers are migratory, and that those who claim to be U.S. citizens is halved. "Now, as a conservative number," he says, "we are looking at least 40 percent to 50 percent [who are] undocumented."

Roka explains that these changes mean the industry is forced to rely upon people with

a greater tendency to pack up and move at the slightest encouragement, and the legal situation is, more often than not, ready to provide that encouragement.

"If the federal government chooses to crack down on that issue," Roka warns, "-- and there are indications they will -- then agricultural enterprises will be seriously impacted."

Labor Boss/Labor Cop

Universally, labor bosses want to hire legal, properly documented workers. Why risk unpicked produce, they reason, over a worker who shouldn't be here to begin with? Plus, many growers are staunch supporters of the "Buy American" philosophy. "You won't find any self-respecting agriculture organization that disagrees we should do away with undocumented aliens," says Heber. "There are rules and regulations about how you get here and you should abide."

But, most often, it's not that simple. Employers are required to check the documents of all who wish to work. "If a man walks into your employment, he can show you any two of 26 pieces of ID," Heber says. The grower must be well-versed enough in all 26 of these documents to recognize forgeries and fakes, and then must be able to assure the documents presented actually belong to the person presenting them. "There are a lot of fraudulent documents," Heber says.

What if a grower turns away a legal applicant because his or her documentation doesn't look good? "He can be sued for document discrimination," Heber explains. "[We know of] numerous lawsuits for document abuse."

Often, the illegality of workers is not discovered until months later, and then not by the likely agency, Immigration and Naturalization Services, but by another American watchdog.

"The risk comes from Social Security," says Heber. "If you have illegal workers, you have bogus Social Security numbers." Like all employers, growers must submit W2 information at regular intervals: some monthly, some quarterly and some annually. It is through these submissions that Social Security determines if a given SS number is valid for the worker using it.

"When the Social Security Administration starts to process the bad numbers, you have a problem," Herber adds. "When you submit, [Social Security] might say '80 percent of your roster are made up of bad numbers -- do something.' The grower says, 'I can't; they are seasonal and gone by the time reports are tracked.'"

Enter 21st Century technology.

"The Social Security Administration is looking into systems that will submit W2 information on a daily basis," says Roka. "Then the employer must have a response. Then the employer has the obligation to say '80 out of 100 people that just walked in my door, have bad numbers.'" And send them away.

Meanwhile, the grower's multi-million dollar investment in that year's crop gets closer and closer to rotting in the field.

Illegal Dependence

There has been some government efforts to protect the industry while complying with public sentiments about illegal aliens. Most notable is a federal act called H2-A. Kevin Morgan is the associate director of the agriculture policy division of the Florida Farm Bureau. "The current program is very expensive for growers and very difficult for growers to use," says Morgan. "Not that many are using it now, but they just about have to go thought a labor attorney because it is so difficult."

H2-A is a program that allows growers to import otherwise illegal workers for short periods of time. Upfront, it costs the grower about $400 per contracted worker, plus filing fees of between $100 to $1000 per job. Additionally, the grower must pay $7.20 per hour regardless of the amount the worker produces, and must guarantee three-fourths of that amount over the length of the contract even if the grower's crop is lost to freeze or pestilence.

Mark Wheeler of Wheeler Brothers is a grower in citrus production and harvesting. He finds the current H2-A difficult to live with. "It tends to work for people who have small volume, large margin crops," he says. "But, like citrus, where we use them for six months, it makes it tough."

Some relief for growers using H2-A workers is now in Congress, in a bill sponsored by Florida Senator Bob Graham. "Our nation's farmers and farmworkers have the important and difficult task of feeding families in the United States and around the world," says Graham. "This innovative legislation enhances benefits, working conditions, and protections for farmworkers while putting efficiency and technology to work for farmers. It moves U.S. agriculture into the 21st Century."

Wheeler is less effusive. "[These] improvements make it more accessible and a little more user-friendly."

He and the other experts agree that any governmental relief is welcome. However, current proposals do not completely protect the industry from labor competition caused by a booming economy combined with the paring of the illegal workers.

"There never has been much security for the grower or the worker," laments researcher Roka. "I guess people get used to it, but it seems like an uncomfortable situation when you have a tomato operation that requires $1.2 million of resources for 100 acres -- and that's a pretty small operation these days -- and you're not sure you even have enough workers to do the work.