Sen. Feinstein (D-Ca.) brings back bill to legalize farmworkers

http://www.mercurynews.com/breakingnews/ci_12370678

By Matt O'Brien
Contra Costa Times
Posted: 05/14/2009 01:17:31 PM PDT
Updated: 05/14/2009 05:34:44 PM PDT

Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Thursday introduced a bill that would grant amnesty to up to 1.35 million farmworkers who are working in the country illegally, many of them in California.

Nicknamed the AgJobs Bill, the measure has been proposed multiple times this decade, without success, by Feinstein and other legislators. Some supporters are hoping it might fare better under the Obama administration.


A farm workers dusts a vineyard along Byron Highway near State Route 4 near Point of Timber in Brentwood, Calif., on Thursday May 14, 2009. For the fourth time this decade, Senator Diane Feinstein and other legislators today have introduced an "AgJobs" bill that, if enacted, would legalize more that one million undocumented farm workers , many of them in California. (Susan Tripp Pollard/Staff)


California's labor-intensive agriculture industry and worker advocates, such as the United Farm Workers of America, have long pushed for the reform measure.

"We have acknowledged for a number of years that a significant part of our labor force presents fraudulent documents in order to get work," said Bryan Little, director of labor relations for the California Farm Bureau.

While drought problems have reduced the demand for labor this year, Little said growers remain concerned about the worker shortages experienced earlier in the decade when lucrative construction jobs pulled employees away from the fields.

"A lot of people who used to do farm work were nailing up housing for construction in Elk Grove," Little said. "Farmers couldn't get people coming to do the work for any price."

FULL story at link.