Posted on 04/06/2008 8:00:56 PM PDT by Tennessee Nana
A work program widely praised by local farmers and managed by the U.S. Government is under fire from a Blount County resident who says it keeps Americans from getting jobs.
Sabrina Steele is accustomed to farm work. She and her husband have a farm in southern Blount County and she says she can work a farm like anyone. "I know what it's like to throw 75-pound hay bales all afternoon in 95-degree weather," Steele said. "I've done it."
Even with extensive background in agriculture and farming, Steele, a 1998 Heritage High School graduate, has not been able to find summer work this year to supplement her family's income. She blames this on a program called H-2A that brings Hispanic laborers to the United States to work for farmers.
Steele says she has been working through the Tennessee Career Centers in Vonore and Alcoa looking for work. Even though farm jobs have been posted at the career centers, which are operated by the Tennessee Department of Labor and Workforce Development, Steele claims none of the farmers she talked to wanted to hire her because they prefer to bring Mexican workers in under the H-2A program.
The H-2A program has only existed since 1986, but it is an offshoot of the H-2 and Bracero programs that date back to the 1940s, according to the U.S. State Department. The program is now managed by the U.S. Department of Labor, the U.S. Department of State and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.
The H-2A program allows farmers to bring in foreign workers to perform agricultural work when domestic workers are not available. The U.S. State Department issues visas to the workers and the farmers are responsible for transporting them to their farms and housing them while they are in the United States.
The H-2A workers receive $9.13 per hour and are covered by workers compensation but get no benefits and are not eligible for overtime pay even if they work more than 40 hours in a week, which they often do, according to farmers who use them.
Albert Coning, a long-time Blount County farmer, credits the H-2A program with keeping his farm in business. According to Coning, he was ready to quit farming altogether when his wife discovered the H-2A program six years ago.
"We were having a terrible time getting people to come here and work," Coning, who is 65 years old, said. "One summer we needed three or four extra workers and we went through 25 people.
"They all took the job, but they only lasted anywhere from two hours to four days, that was it," he said. ?We didn't know from day-to-day if we would be able to work because we didn't know if our help would show up.
"They all said they needed to work and wanted to work, but something else always came up. I told my wife I couldn't do it any more, I wouldn't do it any more."
Not cheap
Coning, who farms between 400 and 500 acres each year, says many people believe the Hispanics provide "cheap labor", but he says that is far from the truth. After paying for transportation to and from the Mexican border, providing them with housing and transportation while they are here and paying the required $9.13 hourly rate, Coning said is not about saving money.
"Anyone who thinks the Mexican workers are cheap doesn't understand," Coning said. "We don't use them because they're cheap, we use them because they're dependable."
When farmers decide to use H-2A workers, they go through a private agency to obtain the employees. Two agencies that provide a large number of H-2A workers for East Tennessee farmers are the Kentucky Tennessee Labor Corporation in Lexington, Ky., and International Labor Management Consultant (ILMC) of Vass, N.C. Tish Sowards owns and managers Kentucky Tennessee Labor Corporation. Her agency processes the paperwork associated with the H-2A program for the farmers for a fee. Local farmers say the agency fee is between $300 and $600 per alien worker.
"American farmers are frustrated," Sowards said. "They've been frustrated for years by American workers who takes jobs and then quit after a few days.
"This is the only way our farmers can know that they'll have a crew the next morning when they wake up," she said. "For the one or two people you find who know what they're getting into with farm work, and are probably able to handle it, you'll go through 20 or 25 employees who say they want the job and then disappear."
Sowards said she believes the government has made it too easy for people in the United States to qualify for money and government programs without having to work.
Little Comfort
Although Steele says she understands why American farmers have turned to alien workers, it provides little comfort for her current situation.
"With our economy the way it is now, it just doesn't seem right for me to go to a place like the Tennessee Career Center for employment only to find out that I can't get on," Steel said. "I don't like feeling like I don't have the same opportunity to work and support my family that they have.
"When I go to buy produce and I pay taxes on it, it just isn't fair that the person growing that produce doesn?t want to pay American workers who need jobs," she said. "If (the farmers) had to pay them overtime and provide benefits for those workers, it would be different. Your body can't work like that ? all bent over for 14 hours a day, every day of the week for 10 or 12 hours each day.
"It's just like child labor to me. These foreign workers are people too, and it's scary to think that we have Blount County employers who don?t see their employees as people."
Jim Howell, the manager of the Tennessee Career Center in Alcoa, said there are currently no farm jobs posted at the Alcoa Career Center.
"We've had a few farm jobs posted," Howell said, "but there are none right now.
"Under the H-2A program, the farms have to make an attempt to hire local workers. We post the jobs when the farms have them, but it's entirely up to the farmers as to who they hire and who they don?t hire."
Some local farmers who did not wish to be named in this article said they hire any and all local workers who apply for jobs at their farm even though they also use H-2A workers. The same farmers indicated that they were rarely able to keep domestic workers for an entire season and relied most heavily on the H-2A workers.
Many of the H-2A workers who end up in Blount County come from regions of Mexico where the average weekly pay is $10 to $15, according to the farmers who hire them. While employed by Blount County farmers, those same workers earn nearly that much per hour.
In 2006, the United States approved visas for 56,183 foreign H-2A workers to come to America and work on 5,448 farms. In 2007, that number climbed to 78,089 alien workers coming here to work on 6,212 farms according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Coning says he is excited for his Mexican workers to arrive around April 15. Coning and his wife have special dinners for them, accompany them to church and fly them back home rather than making them ride the bus when the season is over. In the meantime, Steele is still looking for work on a local farm.
"If it wasn't for the H-2A program, we would be out of farming," Coning said. "Most farmers in this area will tell you the same thing.
"We can't get the people here to do the work, and we'd be out of business without these Mexican workers."
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Expensive workers...
Foreign labor is entitled to twice the wages American workers get ????
PING
This is interesting — the reason given in the article to prefer the H2A workers is that they are dependable, not cheap.
I can see how this is preferable — in my own company we really switched to a model for hiring temps where they are required to work until we decide to let them go, as opposed to before when they had to leave after a year. Our productivity is so much higher because we don’t have to retrain new people every time.
Americans aren’t hungry enough. At one time in our history they would have fought to keep these jobs.
It is a back-breaking job, leaving you drenched. It is also a job virtually all young adults could learn from.
I much more enjoyed roguing, detasseling, and walking beans to the bailing work.
Such farm jobs are capable of creating good character in the kids who stay through the summer. We don't need immigrants, who then become illegals when overstaying their visa, to do it. It prevents our our population from learning the value of a good day's work.
Some of those 'workers' know exactly when their unemployment runs out. It's racket with some 'workers'. There is a local chicken processing plant that had about 1/2 of the factory that was doing that. They switched to Mexicans too.
At least, they are here legally.
How can they be temps if they keep working for you longer than a year?
I thought Federal law required you to hire them after six months or let them go, that way a company could benefit from the temporary worker law as opposed to the drawbacks and expense of hiring someone permanent?
They could pay this to prisoners who could in turn pay room and board and send money home to family and victim. The farmers would get their help and prisons would be self sufficient.
Flame away gang but I see the farmers’ point. If locals (who would probably cost less) aren’t dependable then what is the farmer to do? The woman is looking for “Supplemental Income” what is the guarantee that she is in it for the long run?
This is a legal program that actually seems to be working.
I picked apples and graded tobacco one summmer and fall..
What you say makes some sense but we are talking farm labor here. I know who should fill this so-called labor shortage. The students in the area sitting on their a$$es playing video games and some with nothing better to do than cause trouble.
I don't know if any of you have ever done a job called "dropping sticks" in tobacco before, but, I can guarantee if you have, you don't want to do it again. You have to put enough sticks on your shoulders to lay sticks for the cutters down rows that begin to seem a mile long. It leaves whelps on your shoulders from the many heavy loads trudging through the mud all day.
My kids are going to do it when they are old enough. Anyone is smart enough to do it and yet it was one of my most memorable educational experiences. I learned very quickly doing that for a month, on various farms, that screwing around in school was no longer an option for me. That and working summers with my dad pouring concrete and I was shooting for 4.0 GPA's in a hurry. :)
Sounds like you and I both had an epiphany at a very early age, lol. :)
The money is a whole lot more than many make around here. It’s hard, physical work though.
I agree!! Prisoners need to give something back to society- what better way than by working to produce food and help keep farming cost effective?
I do think agriculture is to blame for their worker issues though. My family worked in ag. jobs years ago and we were forced out of those jobs because farmers and ranchers decided to hire illegals. Not only did they save on the payroll taxes, but the illegals would tolerate bad/dangerous working conditions and really terrible living conditions. Many ag. owners refused to hire citizens for many years- so it is no surprise that they have a hard time now. Working ag. jobs is something you generally learn working beside your parents- it’s just not part of the culture now- but there were plenty of willing citizen workers (at least in my part of the country) when owners pushed them out in favor of illegals.
Ping!
“I’ve done hard physical labor most of my life as have many Freepers, I’d bet. “
Guilty.
Believe it or not, I have worked for this very farmer, helping him set tomato plants in the 95 degree southern heat with the humdidity to boot.
I believe his exact words were:
“Wuh-wuh-work like your ass is on f-f-fire, boy!”
He’s a character alright. And has the work ethic of 3 men. He’s made a good living for himself this way, though. Has his own markets and the like, and he’s built a name for himself in the area. He’e established his name in pumpkins, for instance, and the local community knows where to go on Halloween.
And yeah, there’s plenty of local help. They’re just not going to put in the hard labor that he requires for those kind of wages. There are a lot of local jobs in the area. Maryville is a town of 35,000 or so and growing. Knoxville is 30-minutes or so up the road, and there you’ve got a city of 250,000 in the metro. You can bet that I found my way to life guarding at the local country club and swim coaching in the mornings.
Lifestyle, lifestyle, lifestyle. And near equal pay when it was all said and done. Most kids in the area work a job. Lots of them open lawn mowing businesses or the like.
Working for Albert? There are much less strenuous ways of putting some money in the bank...that’s for sure!! :)
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