Briefing Papers Number 12, December 2011 | Page 11

The Other Side of the Border

they arrive in the United States for their $9 an hour jobs, they
may already be deeply in debt.50
FLOC has pioneered a strategy to improve the H-2A program by creating a fairer recruitment process for workers in
Mexico. On the U.S. side of the border, FLOC has established a framework that includes corporations, grower associations, and H-2A guest workers (represented by FLOC).
In 2004, FLOC used a corporate boycott to help get North
Carolina growers who hire H-2A workers to agree to a contract that delineated workers’ rights. It was the first-ever union
contract for guest workers in the United States. After several
more rounds of boycotts, the Mt. Olive Pickle Company and
the North Carolina Growers Association (NCGA) also signed
an agreement with FLOC. The NCGA hires Mexican H-2A
workers, who are sent to the North Carolina farms that supply cucumbers to Mt. Olive.51 When the contract was signed
in 2004, the NCGA represented 1,000 farmers and 8,500
guest workers covered by the agreement.52 The North Carolina agreement includes an arbitration process so that workers
and growers can resolve disputes more efficiently.
The agreement goes beyond protecting the rights of H-2A
workers in the United States: FLOC maintains a permanent
office in Monterrey, Mexico, where it provides training and
education for workers before they leave home. The program
explains the rights and responsibilities of guest workers in
the United States. FLOC’s model is uncommon in its panoramic vision of addressing immigrant agricultural labor issues from both sides of the border.

Migration and Development

FLOC works on guest worker recruitment, education,
While immigration reform, including passage of AgJOBS, is a long-term struggle, there is potential to improve and training issues on the Mexican side of the border—but
the H-2A program more expeditiously, making
it work better for growers, farm workers, and immigrant-sending communities in Latin America.
“This is the only option that we are seeing to improve things right now on the ground,” said Diego Reyes, executive board member of the Farm
Labor Organizing Committee (FLOC), a union
affiliated with the AFL-CIO.
In spite of the abuses associated with the H-2A
program, legal guest worker permits are sought
after in Mexico and would-be farm workers can
easily go into debt to obtain them. Although the
H-2A visa officially costs $231, workers can end
up paying $400-$600 or more with paperwork,
transportation, and fees paid to recruiters. This
is a significant sum of money for rural Mexicans.
In some cases, potential guest workers obtain
loans at high interest rates to pay for the oppor- Marvin Garcia Salas, a farmer in Chiapas, Mexico, twice migrated to the United
tunity to participate in the program. By the time States to do farm work before returning home for good.
www.bread.org

Bread for the World Institute  11

Laura Elizabeth Pohl

ter for Rural Affairs (CRA), “Farmers under the age of 35 are
fast becoming an endangered species.”47
Although 71 percent of all hired farm laborers in the United States were born in Mexico or Central America only 2.5
percent of farm operators are Hispanic.48  Farm workers are
a full two decades younger than farm operators with an average age of 36.49 But since about half of all hired farm workers
are unauthorized, they are effectively barred from moving
into farm management and operations. This excludes about
one million potential future farmers who are skilled at agricultural work on U.S. farms.
Most agricultural workers leave farm work within 10
years, but if they had access to an agricultural career ladder farm work could become a long-term vocation for immigrants instead of a stepping-stone to work in construction or
the low-skilled service sector.
While some unauthorized immigrants would choose to
leave agriculture even with the opportunity to work in a managerial role, some would certainly continue on the farm if
there was a path for career growth. Unauthorized immigrant
farm workers could be a source of agricultural human capital
renewal in an industry where recruiting the next generation
of managers has been difficult.
Mexican immigrants come disproportionately from rural
communities (see Figure 6) and many of them were small
farmers before they came to the United States. As farming
becomes less accessible and attractive to U.S.-born youth, we
have a source of human capital renewal already working