Posted on 08/08/2003 7:52:34 PM PDT by Brian S
PLANT CITY - A California company says it wants to bring workers from the other side of the world to harvest crops in Hillsborough County. If Agrilabor succeeds, the company could be the first to bring laborers from Thailand to the sandy fields of Florida, said Walter Jants, a labor specialist with Florida's Agency for Workforce Innovation.
Thais would come under the federal guest worker program that allows companies to bring foreigners into this country to do farm labor on a temporary basis when a sufficient number of domestic workers aren't available.
Florida's history with the guest worker program dates to the 1960s and 1970s when most workers came from the Caribbean to harvest sugar cane. Now, 98 percent of guest workers come from Mexico.
Agrilabor, a division of Los Angeles-based Global Horizons Manpower Inc., has had more success with Thais than with workers from Mexico, said Keisha Pickett, an Agrilabor recruiter and spokeswoman at the company's new Temple Terrace office.
Pickett said workers from Thailand, a Southeast Asian country with more than 60 million people, tend to stay for the prescribed work contract, which by law can last up to 11 months, and then they return to their country.
Wary Of Illegal Aliens
Pickett anticipates farmers will be drawn to use her company's services as the federal government continues to crack down on illegal aliens, many of whom work as migrant workers. Jants echoed that sentiment, saying some farmers have been drawn to the guest worker program because of concerns about illegal aliens.
Pickett will market the company to growers at the Florida Strawberry Growers Association trade show from Aug. 26 to 27 in Plant City and at the Citrus Expo on Aug. 27 and 28 in Fort Myers. But it might not be an easy sell. Chip Hinton, executive director of the Plant City- based strawberry growers association, said few farmers use the guest worker program because it is too costly.
Hinton said several area growers tried the guest worker program five years ago but abandoned it. Under the guest worker program, growers pay thousands of dollars to provide housing and pay for transporting guest workers to the United States and back to a foreign country. That's money they do not have to spend when hiring migrant workers, noncontracted workers who pay their own way from job to job.
Pickett disagrees that the program is too expensive. An Agrilabor contract could cost a grower about $18,048 per guest worker, she said. That covers payroll, recruitment, housing and transportation, visa fees, workers' compensation and other benefits.
``It may seem high,'' Pickett said. But ``the grower is paying the same or less'' than if he hired a migrant worker.
Pickett has tried to promote the idea to Florida farmers since spring. She met in late May with several growers in Plant City and the rural areas of Bradenton, Ocala and Miami- Dade County.
``They are really working an area where that hasn't been successful,'' said Hinton, who was among those who met with Pickett.
Statewide, the guest worker program has had limited acceptance. Figures from the latest growing season show about 38 farmers statewide used the program, including one in east Hillsborough and another in Polk County, Jants said. Some 1,500 workers, primarily Mexicans, were allowed to work for those farmers in Florida under the federal program.
According to its Web site, Agrilabor has 13 years' experience in the guest worker business. It has supplied workers to farmers in California, Texas, Arizona and Hawaii, Pickett said. Before 1997, the company worked with farmers overseas. The company became federally licensed to participate in the federal guest worker program in 2002, its Web site says.
To bring in foreign laborers to each state, Agrilabor must first get approval from the regional U.S. Department of Labor office and each state.
A First Step
This month, Pickett took the first step in that process. As of Aug. 1, Pickett is certified as a Florida farm labor contractor, allowed to contract with growers to harvest fruits and vegetables, said Ken Williams, administrator of the state's farm labor program in the Florida Department of Business and Professional Regulation.
Last year, the company brought workers from Thailand to work in Arizona to pick chili peppers, in Hawaii to pick tropical fruit and in Maryland, said Deanne Amaden, spokeswoman for the U.S. Department of Labor's San Francisco office.
She said Global Horizons Manpower was denied a federal labor contractor certification in May for another job in Hawaii and is being investigated in a separate case in connection to wage and hours violations. She could not discuss the investigation because it is an open case.
Amaden said the company was denied a certification for a specific contract in May because it had insufficient information on its application.
In the United States, there are more than 2,500 companies federally certified to bring in foreign labor. About 150,000 guest workers were brought into the United States during 2000-01, said Tino Serrano, a labor department spokesman in San Francisco.
The average guest worker makes $225 a week, he said.
``They can make in a day here what they can make in two weeks in their country,'' Serrano said.
Staff writer Deborah Alberto contributed to this report. Reporter Karlayne R. Parker can be reached at (813) 754-3763.
Just HOW did they determine they could not find enough 'domestic workers' to do the job?
Domestic laborers are not "available" when they ask for $8 rather than $5 per hour. that's the game.
Simple, just bury a 6 point type add in the classified ads which states "Non English speakers wanted for farm work paying $2 per hour after deductions for housing and transportation. Apply in person 4:00 a.m. to 4:30 a.m. on Tuesday at room 23, Cockroach Motel, Liberty City."
and when they are worked to death you can use them for parts.
Because Thai people will do the work cheaper than an illegal mexican will do it for. You are missing the entire point of NAFTA, the H1-B visas, and the new global economics.
People who call them selves "free traders" are not fooling anyone. They are "slave traders", they believe in slavery. The only difference between them and the slave traders of the 19th century is that they dont always have to physically move the slaves from one geographic location to another(in the case of outsourcing). In this case, they are no different. A "free trader" is a slave trader. A free trader does not want to have unions, fair labor practices, environmental protections, social security, occupational safety and heath standards in the workplace, health care for people who work for a living, etc. I.e, they are slave traders in the true sense of the word, and they dont care if they destroy the earth in the process of making an extra few cents.
Because Thai people will do the work cheaper than an illegal mexican will do it for.
yup- and they're LEGAL- i.e. we can crate 'em up and ship 'em home when the work is done- or rather, we will have a paper trail on them from the company "importing" them, and will be able to get our social security, taxes, medicare, what have you out of their check.
This sounds like a plan to me- Legalize the gastarbeiter market, but regulate the hell out of it. little more expensive for the company, but better for the country.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.