H.R. 4092, the “Agricultural Guestworker Act,” is yet the latest attempt by the Majority to address one aspect of our Nation’s broken immigration system. And, on at least two prior occasions, our Committee has considered previous iterations of this legislation.
Unfortunately, this current version is not an improvement over its predecessors. Indeed, it is worse than them, despite repeated promises by the Majority that the bill would improve compared to prior versions, including by enabling at least some undocumented farmworkers to obtain permanent residence.
But the current measure fails to include any such provision, and the rest of it has only gotten worse.
To begin with, the bill replaces the current wage system for farmworkers—the “Adverse Effect Wage Rate”—with a wage floor of 115% of the Federal minimum wage—or $8.34 an hour.
This will result in wage decreases of up to $5.00 per hour for farmworkers in certain parts of the country.
In addition, the bill eliminates housing and transportation requirements -- as well as other worker protections -- which will even further decrease those wages. The Majority itself candidly acknowledges that workers under this bill will effectively be paid far below the Federal minimum wage. This is why the bill actually exempts such workers from the protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
Farmworkers are already among the lowest paid workers in the United States. At the same time, they do some of the hardest and most back-breaking work in the country. There is no merit, or justice, in slashing their already meager wages.
To make matters worse, the bill employs a significantly broader definition of the term “agriculture,” which would bring drastic wage reductions to other industries unrelated to traditional farming.
For example, the bill defines agriculture to include forestry-related activities, as well as meat and poultry processing. Wages in some of these industries, which include many U.S. workers, can average higher than $20.00 per hour, as is the case for logging workers and fallers.
The wage cuts in this bill would threaten their livelihoods. There is no doubt in my mind that if this bill were to become law, employers across the country would immediately begin replacing these workers with foreign guestworkers at less than half of the cost.
My colleagues on the other side of the aisle often speak of the need to protect U.S. workers from immigrants.
So I am surprised to see them now offer a bill that appears to make their nightmare scenario come true—creating an incentive to replace well-paid U.S. workers with temporary foreign workers at a drastically lower cost.
Make no mistake, this is a bill that allows employers to bring in millions of new guestworkers. Without real wage and labor protections, or even the minimal protections found in other temporary worker programs, U.S. workers would almost certainly be disadvantaged and displaced.
Finally, we need a comprehensive solution that fixes our broken immigration system.
Instead, this legislation represents a piecemeal approach that threatens to replace Americans working in the agriculture, forestry, seafood, and food processing and manufacturing industries with an army of lower paid temporary guest workers who have far fewer rights than American workers.
These are not the solutions our country needs. I thank the Chairman and I yield back the balance of my time.
