Latin Amer. leaders discuss labor plan with Calif. farmers

AP on Bakersfield Californian ^ | 6/7/08 | AP

[NormsRevenge]

Honduran president Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales and representatives from El Salvador and Guatemala met with California farmers Saturday to hash out a plan that will train laborers from those countries to work in the Western U.S.

The plan is set to start with about 300 workers from Mexico and Central America. It will operate under existing U.S. guest worker laws and take at least a year to implement, said Manuel Cunha Jr., president of the Nisei Farmers League, a group that represents hundreds of agriculture businesses in California, Washington, Oregon and Arizona.

Growers plan to work with Latin American countries to recruit and train workers to prune, pick and package produce and other goods in the nation's No. 1 farming state and beyond.

"Agriculture is very important in this country and to make it happen we need labor. We need skilled labor. We need legal labor," Cunha said after the summit, held in rural Fresno County.

The Latin American representatives said they hoped the partnership would provide an economic boon to all countries involved, and talked with large growers about moving some of their business from Asia to Central America.

Another issue was the working conditions for farmworkers in the U.S.

"We're willing to recruit, train and organize people if we're sure they are going somewhere safe and with rights," Zelaya said.

About one million undocumented farmworkers harvest crops and work in dairies in California's $32 billion industry each year, according to state estimates.

Farmers have long supported comprehensive immigration reform that grants temporary legal working status to undocumented farmworkers already in this country.

However, bills looking to achieve that - such as U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein's AgJOBS bill - have languished in Congress.

Though AgJobs and later a proposed Emergency Agriculture Relief Act gained bipartisan support, opposition came from members demanding comprehensive immigration reform that went beyond the agriculture industry.

The Emergency Agriculture Relief Act was removed from the Senate Iraq War supplemental funding bill last month.

[rockinqsranch]

“...We need legal labor,” Cunha said after the summit, held in rural Fresno County.”

“Though AgJobs and later a proposed Emergency Agriculture Relief Act gained bipartisan support, opposition came from members demanding comprehensive immigration reform that went beyond the agriculture industry.”

Reads to me that the Calif. Ag. group is trying to come up with a means to acquire the labor they need legally, but their efforts are being thwarted by the Democraps/RINO’s/Leftists efforts for Amnesty “beyond the agriculture industry” to add to their voting block.

Building on their Leftist base.