Farm Worker Series

About one year ago, the Border Agricultural Workers' Union, or UTAF, submitted a list of 26 labor contractors to the Department of Labor for Investigation. The contractors, many of whom operate in southern New Mexico, were alleged to be in violation of minimum wage and other laws pertaining to agricultural labor. The UTAF complains that no thorough investigation was ever carried out, but Ricardo Anaya of the Labor Department's El Paso Office says the allegations on the list were too vague. Violations have been alleged. The list shows that such contractors were in violation of the MISPE Act, but those violations are not specific. Carlos Monentes, the coordinator of the UTAF, responds that the allegations made by his organization were clear enough. For example, when we say that a vulnerable contractor is in violation of fire labor standards,

that basically we are saying that he's not paying the minimum wage. So it's a clear, a clear charge that we are making. The Labor Department's Ricardo Anaya, caution that it is wrong to assume that widespread violations are being committed by farm labor contractors in southern New Mexico. Anaya adds that he has seen an improvement since the late 1970s in farm labor conditions in southern New Mexico and West Texas. According to other Department officials, previous investigations were conducted against some of the farm labor contractors listed in the UTAF complaint. Although one official told this reporter that some penalties had been assessed, exact figures had proved difficult to obtain. However, according to one Labor Department official in El Paso, monetary fines for farm labor violations range from $50 to $1,000. According to its own figures, the Department's El Paso Office conducted some 1900 hours of

investigations in fiscal year 1985. Although the office must cover a wide area in southern New Mexico and West Texas, Ricardo Anaya says his office's staff of five does an adequate job. In El Paso Office, I think that we're adequately staffed. I think that there's enough persons, investigators, here in El Paso Office. Carlos Monentes, the coordinator of the UTAF, is one who disagrees with Anaya's assessment of his office's performance. According to the Labor Activist, violations committed by farm labor contractors have actually worsened since Monentes' union in 1985, submitted their complaint to the Labor Department. The violations are getting worse because the farm labor contractors know that there's nobody, that there's no authority that is going to bother them. They feel that they can do whatever they want because nobody's going to stop them.

But at least one farm labor contractor, Hailing from the El Paso area, has caught the eye of Labor Department officials. In 1985, a bus owned by contractor, Gabrielle Galarsa, was involved in a fatal accident in El Paso, which left two farm workers dead. The bus was returning from an onion field near Hatch, New Mexico. Galarsa's vehicle had neither adequate breaks nor seating. The accident resulted in a Department of Labor soup against the farm labor contractor who was fined $2,500. But the El Paso bus incident is not the first time Galarsa has been in trouble. The Labor Department conducted a 1983 investigation in which it was initially determined that Galarsa and Roswell area farmer Frank Rhodes owed over $3,000 in back wages to farm workers. Other allegations dating back to 1979 have been made against Galarsa by the UTAF. Under federal rules, Galarsa has a right to a hearing to consider a possible license revocation.

According to the Labor Department's Nora Lasoya, such a hearing can take years to occur. In the meantime, Galarsa can legally operate as a farm labor contractor, in spite of his guilt in the crash which left two farm workers dead. In February of this year, the Department of Labor temporarily renewed Gabrielle Galarsa's registration for two more years. So the KUNM evening report, I'm Kent Patterson. Last June, the State Environmental Improvement Board adopted field sanitation standards for farm workers and banned the use of shorthandled tools in the weeding and thinning of crops. Shorthandled tools, such as a shorthandled hoe, are blamed for causing back problems. The ban on shorthandled tools became effective July 23rd, but violations have since been reported. Joe Romero is an attorney with Southern New Mexico Legal Services in Las Cruces. In fact, last week we received two complaints and we think there are a lot more violations

unfortunately going on out there. These two particular complaints that we received, one was a co-another employee in this office who honored a way to work on the side of the highway, saw a group of farm workers out there with their contractor using, working with a shorthandled hoe. Southern New Mexico Legal Services referred the complaints to the state. According to state OSHA Chief Sam Rogers, the state will be issuing citations to violators. Repay offenders could be fined up to $1,000, but Rogers says a realistic penalty assessment will probably be around $200 or $300. Rogers' office is planning to carry out spot inspections of larger agricultural operations. But with only 10 inspectors to cover over 33,000 businesses in New Mexico, Rogers is counting on voluntary compliance by agricultural employers. Some farmers in Southern New Mexico will not dead set against the banning of shorthandled

tools or a critical of the process which resulted in state action. Messiah Valley chili producer Orlando Cervantes says workers are the ones who will really lose out. I don't think that it's going to have a great impact in the area to the glory, it may have a greater impact on the worker and not a favorable because there are some people that prefer to use the shorthandled hoe and they make more money. But Southern New Mexico Legal Services attorney Ismail Kamacho, who observed last month a group of workers using the shorthandled hoe, says some field workers expressed to him an interest in an alternative tool. They said that they did prefer the shorthand hoe that they were more accustomed to using this. They also said that if the contractor would give him the option to learn on the long handle hoe that they would be happy to do that. At its June hearing, the Environmental Improvement Board also issued state standards for drinking

water and toilets. Part of the basis for the issuance of state rules was a 1985 study conducted by the Environmental Improvement Division. The study surveyed farms in New Mexico Southern Rio Grande Valley and reported on the lack of available sanitary facilities and drinking water for many farm workers. Orlando Cervantes is one who is skeptical of the study. Now, the drinking water, I think most of the people do provide water, most of the contractors. And in the cases where you have a large, large number of people in a field, most of those people provide for themselves, you know. I mean, it's like a picnic, a type of thing, you know, they do not depend on the contractor for water to a great extent, a lot of them carry their own care, their own lunch, carry their own sodas, and this type of thing, you know. The state drinking water rule requires agricultural employers to provide cool drinking water as of last July 23rd.

But one former farm worker interviewed at a labor recruitment site in El Paso says not all this summer, we're abiding by the book. They don't. They're still violating. They're still violating the bylaws and the laws. I'm very familiar with the laws. New Mexico also adopted a rule requiring employers to provide one toilet per 20 farm workers. The rule becomes effective January 1st, 1987. New Mexico farm and livestock bureau spokesman Eric Ness protests that the regulation could prove costly for many growers. Ness is also unhappy at what he complains is the haste in which the state adopted the standard. The Farm Bureau spokesman says it's possible the rule could be amended after the November election. You know, the field sanitation regulation, when we get a new administration and anything that we get will probably be more reasonable than what we have right now and seek an amendment of the regulation to go back to the one per 40 ratio sanitary facilities just like California has and works just fine.

Whether the one toilet per 20 farm workers rule is amended may become a moot point. The federal Department of Labor is expected to issue its own standards in 1987. These rules would supersede any lower New Mexico standards. For the KUNM evening report, I'm Kent Patterson. The rules adopted September 1st by the Legal Services Corporation or LSC generally prohibit corporation employees from involvement in the legislative process. The rules also put curtailments on training programs. The LSC action follows 1974 congressional legislation and a similar measure enacted in 1984 by the corporation. The new rules occur within a backdrop of conflict between agricultural interests, conservative politicians and LSC officials on one side and farm worker legal workers on the other. Workness is a spokesman for the New Mexico farm and livestock bureau.

Well, I think we have to look first at the fact that legal services, the legal services corporation receives funding from the federal government, in other words tax payer money. And it's always been amazing to us that these lawyers can sit behind their desk and file suit against our farmers and come in and fight us over certain regulations at the state level, funded by our tax paying dollars and basically attacking the industry. We have been trying at the federal level, we have policy on this for some time, to cut off funding, all funding to legal services corporation. We can't see that they're doing anybody any kind of a service. The offense of against LSC funded farm worker legal programs picked up steam in 1981 when President Reagan proposed zero funding for LSC. While the president's request proved unpopular in Congress, the current 11 member LSC board is made up of Reagan appointees. In recent years, LSC funded farm worker legal advocates have accused their parent body

of targeting several services for harassment, including programs in California, Arizona, Texas, and Maryland. A 1985 audit of California rural legal assistance by an LSC appointed monitoring team provoked protests. One of the members of the monitoring team was a former immigration service official once sued by an LSC supported program in Texas. In New Mexico, local farmers complained to politicians and agricultural spokesmen following the filing of a class action suit several years ago by Southern New Mexico legal services. The suit was filed on behalf of a group of farm workers against an onion producing association in the Masea Valley town of Mesquite. As a result of the suit, onion producers agreed to pay the minimum wage and provide sanitary facilities. One basis of the conflict between growers and their allies and farm worker legal advocates is disagreement over whether taxpayer supported attorneys should pursue class action activity. Joe Romero is an attorney with Southern New Mexico legal services.

People have the idea or the notion that legal services should help antigens with specific problems and not get into what's called impact litigation where they try and really make structural changes as far as changes in the law. That's a big problem because as a legal services group, you have limited resources and you have to make decisions as to how to divide those resources, whether to provide specific services like divorces and wheels and insurance problems for individual antigens or whether you're going to try and work on a class action or impact case where you're going to have to commit a lot of resources. But debate over the merits of impact versus individual litigation may well prove academic. Reduce federal dollars mean hard choices ahead for farm worker legal advocates. East Mile El Camacho is with Southern New Mexico legal services farm worker project.

I think that in my personal opinion, there has to be some type of balance in between the impact cases that we do do and service cases. I think that our office cannot do nothing but service cases and it can't do nothing but all but impact cases. I think there has to be some type of balance in there and I think that now that balance has turned to more service type of cases where we find ourselves doing a lot of divorces, social security, wheels, adoptions, you name it in any type of civil cases, we're doing nothing but those type of cases and we've gone away from doing cases where it's going to impact a far majority of the people with the resources that we do receive. East Mile El Camacho is an attorney with Southern New Mexico legal services in Los Cruces. Before the KUNM evening report, I'm Kent Patterson. Over 1,500 workers could be affected by the outcome of a lawsuit filed earlier this year

in Albuquerque federal court. The suit, Amador Verstezman, was filed on behalf of 38 lettuce harvest workers by Texas rural legal aid. The plaintiffs are seeking class action status. Defendants include Griffin and Brandt's sales agency, Presidio Valley Farms and Desmond Packing Company. Three other original defendants failed to answer and have defaulted. In their complaint, the plaintiffs alleged a defendant of engaging in a pattern of racketeering by committing male, wire and transportation fraud. The defendants are also accused of illegal paycheck deductions, failing to pay the minimum wage and providing unauthorized housing and transportation. The alleged acts took place in southwestern states, including New Mexico. The plaintiffs are pursuing their case under a federal anti-racketeering statute known as RICO. While use of the RICO statute is new in a farm worker civil case, the defendants in the New Mexico suit are no strangers to labor conflict. Griffin and Brandt's sales agency is a large Texas-based agricultural producer with interest

in the U.S. Southwest, Florida, Mexico and Central America. For at least several years now, the company has had problems in Texas. The Texas-based International Union of Agricultural Workers has engaged in strikes and lawsuits against the corporation. Union Director Jesus Moya cites one incident which resulted in a complaint. For example, two years ago, we filed a lawsuit against Griffin and Brandt because 47 people were taken to Plainview, Texas and they were sleeping outside for two weeks. Some of them were cooking on the ground with no stove, there was no electricity, there was no running water. Some of them slept in the packing shed until they were chased away by Griffin and Brandt. Moya has had his share of personal difficulties with Griffin and Brandt, according to the labor activists, an employee of the company ran him over two years ago. I was alongside the public road and then he came to me and he told me to get out of there

and I told him, look man, I mean you don't know on the public roads, these roads belong to the people for everyone that pays taxes. For it threatened me and I kind of took for granted that he was going to leave the area. But what he did, he got on this on the pickup truck and then he ran over me and he kind of broke about three of my fingers and relocated my knee and the injury in my back. Griffin and Brandt attorney James Elliott explained in an interview that his clients prefer not to comment on legal cases. Elliott does add that past and pending cases are mere allegations. Both Griffin and Brandt and Presidio Valley Farms have filed for dismissal of the New Mexico suit. Another defendant, lettuce packer Larry Desmond, will deny any intentional wrongdoing in violating farm labor laws in New Mexico. Meanwhile, proposed legislation could change the grounds under which Amador versus Desmond is pursued.

The American Bar Association has endorsed legislation to eliminate the use of the federal racketeer in statute in civil cases prior to a criminal prosecution under the act. If passed, such a law would mean that the federal government would first have to prosecute an agricultural employer before farm workers could use a Rico statute. While Washington has pursued criminal cases against labor leaders accused of Rico violations, the federal government has yet to employ the law against agricultural interests or farm labor contractors that according to Labor Department spokesman Lynn Lagan and Dallas. For the KUNM evening report, I'm Kent Patterson. The vast majority of farm workers who harvest in New Mexico's crops are a Mexican descent or nationality. The fact that some may be without legal papers attracts the attention of immigration authorities. The investigation sometimes draw criticism from the state's farmers.

Eric Ness is a spokesman for the New Mexico Farm and Lifestyle Bureau. The only time we run into trouble is when the feds tighten up and come in and start running through our fields two and three times a day and hovering over them with their helicopters and ruining the lettuce. That's when we started having problems. We had to sit down and talk to them last year and tell them what our problems were and we didn't see a let up in that. Again, the problem is not with the farm workers. We've got to have them. They're absolutely vital in this 2,000-mile stretch of border here between here and California. The labor is not available in the United States and we can't get our crops out without them. Debate over the presence of undocumented workers here has led to congressional attempts to regulate the immigrant labor flow into the United States. A bill passed last year by the U.S. Senate would legalize the presence of temporary agricultural workers in the United States. According to Eric Ness, the New Mexico farm and livestock bureau would like to see a workable guess worker program.

Ness cautions, however, that his organization will oppose employer sanctions and provisions that don't address federal requirements to obtain search warrants before authorities could enter a farm or ranch. The New Mexico Farm Bureau spokesman says the state's farmers and ranchers prefer a program similar to the Oprah Cero system. In 1942 and 1964, millions of Mexican contract workers were brought into the United States under the auspices of the so-called Bersero program. The program's critics charge it undermined efforts to organize farm workers. Expanded guess worker proposals before the U.S. Congress are likewise drawing fire. In 1984, hundreds of farm workers struck El Paso-based labor contractors and chili growers around Anthony, New Mexico. The strike was led by a new organization called the Border Agricultural Workers Union or UTAF. Carlos Manantes is the union's director. With that provision, for example, we have a strike on the fields in Arizona, they're going to use it to bring farm workers to break that strike.

This is the same thing they did in the 50s with the Bersero program, at that time, really powerful organizing effort was taking place in California and they passed the Bersero program and they destroyed that effort. Although the Bersero program was terminated in 1964, a similar guess worker program continues to this day. About 20,000 workers are brought into the United States each year under what is known as the H2 provision. For years, use of H2 workers was confined to the Eastern Seaboard. More recently, the program has expanded to Western states. At least 20 major lawsuits have been filed against H2 growers for displacing eligible U.S. farm workers. One other suit charged the Presidio Valley Farmers Association of Texas with failing to pay the minimum wage to H2 workers from Mexico. An Association member, Presidio Valley Farms, is currently being sued by lettuce harvest

workers for federal racketeer in violations in New Mexico. Despite the problems associated with the H2 program, it appears New Mexico growers are testing the waters of this and future guess worker programs. In 1985, the U.S. Department of Labor certified the availability of several H2 workers in the New Mexico grape industry. According to a Department official on Dallas, the jobs were for specialized pruners unavailable in the United States. Employment of such workers would be a violation of regulations if workers with the same skills were available anywhere in the country. While no similar certification of H2 availability was made in New Mexico this year, some predict that the state's growers, especially those in the developing grape industry, will utilize future guess worker programs, Carlos Manantes. We are also talking about a development of a grape industry from lower to true to consequences. Within that, especially the people involved in the grape industry, they are thinking on

the gas workers as a way to bring a labor force to those areas. Because in this area, we don't have workers who have experience in the grape industry. Carlos Manantes is the director of the UTAF, an El Paso-Base Union seeking to organize farm workers in New Mexico and West Texas. For the KUNM evening report, I'm Kent Patterson.