Mollie Hollibough, a labor specialist with Washington Farm Labor Source talks to Manolo Zaldivar, one of the speakers at the annual Ag Safety Day at the Yakima Convention Center on Thursday. Hollibough helps farmers find and contract labor.

Anticipating another tight labor market and fearful of immigration enforcement that could lead to heavy fines, local growers are expected to expand their use of a federal guest-worker program in the upcoming season.

The program, known as H-2A for the type of visa issued by the State Department, allows growers to hire foreign workers for a certain contract period as long as they provide housing, transportation and other minimum requirements.

Last year, about 800 foreign H-2A workers labored in fields statewide for 30 different employers. Only one grower in the Yakima Valley used the program, hiring 15 guest workers from Mexico.

But farm labor contractors say they are seeing heightened local interest
this year because of last year's bidding wars over wages.

Workers exercised their economic clout by quitting orchards that weren't paying at least 20 percent more than the previous year and moving to jobs that paid $15 an hour. It wasn't unheard-of for a fast picker to make $200 a day last season.

"The supply and demand situation last year caused some animosity among farmers, which is not a good thing," Mollie Hollibough, labor specialist with Yakima-based Washington Farm Labor Source, said in a recent interview.

Washington Farm Labor Source is a new company formed to handle the H-2A application process for growers. The company is billing H-2A as "the answer," with ads that read, "Employees should not be like clouds, breezing in and out of your workplace."

Yakima Valley growers traditionally have relied on a migrant and seasonal work force of about 30,000 people. The only H-2A employers in the area have been sheep ranchers in Moxee and Centerville, in Klickitat County, who hire a handful of shepherds from Peru and Chile.

But the picture for tree fruit began to change in 2004 when a Los Angeles-based labor contractor brought 170 Thai farm workers to farms in Wapato and Harrah under the H-2A program. John Verbrugge of Valley Fruit in Wapato said he liked the idea of a guaranteed, legal work force.

Up to 70 percent of the Yakima Valley's farm work force is estimated to be illegal. Growers and undocumented workers alike fear stepped-up enforcement action by the federal government.

Since last May, under Operation Return to Sender, officials have arrested 14,000 illegal immigrants. So far, none of those raids has occurred in the Yakima Valley.

H-2A is a way to hire legal workers. Workers who leave their employers before the contract period become illegal and subject to deportation.

But the program has long had critics, who say it's open to abuse because workers have no say over who they work for. Another fear that's been documented in North Carolina -- the largest user of H-2A workers in the country -- is blacklisting. Legal aid lawyers have won settlements for workers who were not invited back after they complained about poor working conditions.

The Yakima Valley has had a taste of the problems that H-2A can bring. The Thai workers, for example, are suing Global Horizons and two growers, alleging various abuses, including promising more work than was actually available. Global is fighting the complaint.

State officials are officially neutral on H-2A, which is largely administered by the federal government. But they obligated to try to find domestic workers to fill agricultural jobs before an H-2A order can be completed.

Oscar Trevino, H-2A program coordinator for the state Employment Security Department, believes there will be enough local workers this season.

"I feel we'll be able to fill most of those job orders domestically," Trevino said.

Employment Security is planning to try a program that's been available in other states to alleviate shortages. Called the Federal Interstate Clearance System, the program would move workers from states with a surplus of labor to those with shortages.

"Growers are very interested in this program because it avoids dealing with the Department of Homeland Security for the H-2A visa," said Dan Fazio, director of employer services for the Washington Farm Bureau.

The longest delay in securing H-2A workers comes from Homeland Security's investigation of worker backgrounds. Criminal checks are performed, and each individual worker's "risk" for quitting the contract while in the United States is assessed. Workers who demonstrate strong family and economic ties to their hometowns in Mexico get priority.

While H-2A increasingly is an option for growers -- especially with immigration reform absent in Congress -- it's neither cheap nor easy. Growers have to pay a $100 fee to the Department of Labor plus $10 for each certified H-2A job opening.

If they use a company like Hollibough's, they pay another $800 per worker plus each worker's transportation costs from Mexico to the United States and back home again. Housing is also the employer's responsibility.

And this year, the wage rate for H-2A workers, set by the federal government, is $9.77 an hour, up nearly 8.5 percent from the 2006 rate.

Parker Heights grower Rob Valicoff, who used H-2A last year, said he's going ahead despite the wage increase.

"We're going to do whatever we need to do to get our crops picked," he said in a recent interview with a Farm Bureau publication.

Growers shouldn't look to Congress for a solution to their labor woes anytime soon. U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Pasco, said even if there is immigration reform legislation this year, it won't come soon enough for the cherry crop.

"My advice to the industry is to try to prepare as much as you can (for a shortage)."

Source: yakima-herald.com