Bush changes farm worker rules

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) — As it prepares to leave office, the Bush administration is moving to make it easier for U.S. farming companies to hire foreign field workers, which farm worker groups say will worsen wages and working conditions.

Farm groups said changes to the H2A visa program, used by the agriculture industry to hire temporary farm workers, were posted on the Labor Department’s website at midnight Dec. 9 but have since been taken down. Labor Department spokesman Terry Shawn said whatever was posted was not the final version of the new rule, which Shawn said would be published in the Federal Register on Dec. 18.
The Bush administration published a proposed version of the new rule Feb. 13 and received nearly 12,000 public comments, Shawn said. The next version will be a final rule and can take effect 30 days after publication. Some of its provisions would take effect in mid-January and others later in 2009, the farm worker groups said.
Farm worker advocates and the United Farm Workers union said the version that appeared on the website would lead to a flood of cheaper workers.

“The government has decided to offer agriculture employers really low wages, low benefits, no government oversight to bring in foreign workers on restricted visas and thereby convince them they should do this instead of hiring undocumented workers,” said Bruce Goldstein, executive director of Farmworker Justice, a group that advocates for farm workers.

The changes in the posted version would drop a requirement that an employer get the Labor Department to certify it faces a worker shortage before it can get visas for foreign workers; instead, employers would be allowed simply to attest in writing to a shortage. That version of the new rule also would change the method for calculating wage minimums for workers and relieve employers of a requirement to recruit in states or communities where other employers already are hiring farm workers, Goldstein said.

Leon Sequeira, a Labor Department assistant secretary, said the agency is not dropping requirements on certification, which is required by law. Paul Schlegel, American Farm Bureau public policy director, said many of the changes will make the program a little less burdensome for employers. He said existing laws prevent employers from hiring foreign workers if the jobs can be filled by U.S. workers.

“My members want to make sure they have a legal supply of labor,” said Schlegel, who added that he had not reviewed all the proposed changes.

“We are hopeful that the Obama administration would recognize the utter mistake and unfairness of this proposal,” Goldstein said. Congress has a procedure for reversing the rules, he said.

10,000 chickens killed in fire
PADUCAH, Ky.(AP) — A fire official says about 10,000 chickens were killed when a fast-moving fire destroyed a western Kentucky barn.
No people were hurt in the Friday fire, according to The Paducah Sun. Richard Tapp, chief of the Reidland-Farley Fire Department, said the cause of the fire was unknown, but a propane heater may have been the culprit. He said no foul play was suspected.

Ray Atkinson, a spokesman for Pilgrim’s Pride, said the barn was on a farm owned by Elbert Castillow Jr., who contracted with the Pittsburg, Texas-based company.

Tapp said the fire was called in about 12:30 p.m. CST and spread quickly through the long, straight barn. He said efforts to put it out were also hampered because the closest fire hydrant was hundreds of yards away. He said only a handful of chickens escaped.

Farmer drowns saving two
PERRY, Ill. (AP) — A western Illinois farmer drowned in a farm pond after managing to save his son and a man who worked for him.
Forty-four-year-old Roderick Webel died Dec. 8 at a hospital shortly after being pulled from the icy pond close to his home near Perry in Pike County. Authorities say the pond was covered with about three inches of ice.

Webel was a member of the Griggsville-Perry School board and has been serving on the Pike County Board Farmland Assessment Review Committee.

Bale slides, killing Iowa man
BURT, Iowa (AP) — A 50-year-old man has died after a cornstalk bale slid and pinned him against a tractor.

Kossuth County Sheriff Paul Gronbach said the accident occurred about noon Dec. 8 near the small northern Iowa community of Burt. Kent Haberger was trying to move the large bale with a tractor loader when it slid.

Gov. asks help for more counties
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Gov. Phil Bredesen has asked for federal disaster aid in nine more Tennessee counties because of lingering drought conditions.

Bredesen said crop and livestock losses by farmers in Bedford, Cocke, Marshall, Maury, Moore, Putnam, Sevier, Van Buren and White counties were the reasons for the request he made this week in a letter to USDA Secretary Ed Schafer. The USDA granted an agricultural disaster designation earlier this year for 39 Tennessee counties and the state has pending a request for seven others.