In an occupation already riddled with labor standard violations, these bills are regressive policy solutions to growing labor problems. The Judiciary Committee will soon consider agricultural guestworker legislation introduced by Rep. Pombo, H.R. 4548. Studies repeatedly have concluded that there is no farm labor shortage and that the wages and working conditions of farmworkers are unacceptably low. Consistent with an oversupply of labor, farmworkers' wages have decreased in real terms during the past dozen years, said CRS and others. Very few farmworkers receive benefits such as health insurance, vacation pay, overtime pay, or sick leave.
Analysts are unanimous in believing that there is a crisis in housing for agricultural workers.
These bills would do nothing to improve wages and working conditions or living conditions for farmworkers. The current H-2A temporary foreign agricultural worker program issues temporary visas to employers. It has more than doubled in size and spread to new states and crops during this decade, as additional employers have filed applications. Legislation enacted in 1999 has substantially quickened the H-2A program to answer the employers' demands for streamlining. Virtually none of these problems for workers has been addressed.