A lawsuit against a north San Diego County tomato grower has become the latest salvo in the debate over a federal program that allows foreign workers to come to the United States to offset temporary labor shortages.
Only two agricultural companies in California have used the guest-worker program -- a controversial component of congressional immigration reform -- and both have now been sued. Farm-worker advocates say the temporary visa program invites abuses of both foreign and domestic workers and that immigration reform should focus instead on helping to legalize workers already in the U.S. labor force.
The agricultural industry "would like to transform the farm labor force into a force of guest workers rather than legal residents," said Bruce Goldstein, co-executive director of the Farmworker Justice Fund in Washington, D.C. "That's really what this fight is about."
But industry representatives counter that the lawsuits underscore the need to make the program less bureaucratic for growers. The farmers say it has been increasingly difficult to find dependable workers because of a post-Sept. 11 immigration crackdown and because legal workers are increasingly moving into more stable -- and less grueling -- jobs.
"It's turning out that anyone who decides to enter that program is literally drawing a target on their chests and inviting lawsuits for infractions," said Eric Larson, executive director of the San Diego County Farm Bureau.
The most recent lawsuit was filed on behalf of immigrant farm workers who were laid off from their jobs at Harry Singh & Sons in September, just days before 168 laborers were brought in from Mexico under the federal guest-worker program to replace them.
Singh attorney Merrill "Rick" Storms said the company was reeling from Border Patrol raids on its immigrant work force and facing a looming tomato harvest when it applied in July to bring in the Mexican laborers. Permission was granted by the U.S. Department of Labor to do so beginning Sept. 26. Meanwhile, the grower bused workers from the Coachella Valley in Riverside to its fields.
The lawsuit alleges that on Sept. 21, the Coachella workers were told the bus service would be discontinued, and that they could keep their jobs only if they found housing near the company's leased fields at the Camp Pendleton Marine Corps Base.
