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["Bruce Hansen" <brucedhansen@sbcglobal.net>]

Agricultural Personnel Management Program 
 University of California

3/29/00 News Report -- The Wall Street Journal 

Fruit Firms Sued Over Illegal Aliens 
by Helen Jung 
Two Washington residents who work in Eastern Washington's tree-fruit
industry have sued two packing houses and a staffing agency, charging they
deliberately hire illegal immigrants in order to depress wages for all
employees. 
The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in U.S. District Court in Spokane, accuses the
defendants of running an "illegal immigrant hiring scheme" that violates the
U.S. Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act and a state
anti-conspiracy law. 
The packing-house companies, which also own orchards in the Yakima Valley,
have for years "knowingly employed illegal aliens" and used the staffing
agency to do so, says Steve Berman, the Seattle attorney representing the
plaintiffs, who are Mexican nationals. 
Mr. Berman, a well-known class-action lawyer who represented Washington and
other states in suits against the tobacco industry, says the suit is
intended both to compensate injured workers and to "change the way the
industry does business" in Washington. 
The suit seeks unspecified damages from the defendants -- Zirkle Fruit Co.
and Matson Fruit Co., both of Selah, and Selective Employment Inc. of Yakima
-- and asks the court to issue an injunction preventing them from continuing
their alleged illegal activity. 
The defendants say they can't comment on the suit, because they haven't had
time to review it. But Mike Gempler, executive director of the Washington
Growers League in Yakima, dismisses the accusations as groundless and
ridiculous. 
"It's an outrageous concept to begin with," he says, referring to the notion
that any orchard or packing company would by design seek out illegal aliens
and hire them, knowing the company could be fined by the U.S. Immigration
and Naturalization Service. 
In fact, the INS has in recent years been cracking down on the state's $1
billion-plus fruit-picking and packing industry for its use of illegal
immigrants in Eastern Washington, staging several raids on warehouses. 
And Mr. Gempler says it's an absurd contention that orchards and packing
houses are depressing wages. With the labor market tightening, he says,
growers are paying as much as they have in years. 
Indeed, the state's $8-an-hour wage is at the high end of the range for crop
workers around the country, says Bruce Goldstein, co-executive director of
the Farmworker Justice Fund Inc., a national litigation and advocacy group
for migrant and seasonal workers in Washington, D.C. 
But, Mr. Goldstein argues, that means little when wages in real dollar terms
have declined over the years. The hourly wage in real dollar terms declined
about 70 cents an hour in 1998 (the most recent figures available), he says,
citing a new report from the U.S. Department of Labor. 
About 150,000 mostly seasonal laborers work picking and packing Washington
crops every year, Mr. Gempler figures, though he adds that the actual number
may be smaller because so many hold multiple jobs. There are no official
estimates as to how many of the state's seasonal workers might be in the
country illegally. 
While many employers in the fruit belt acknowledge that much of their work
force probably isn't legal, they say there isn't much they can do about it.
Orchards and packers are "between a rock and a hard place," says Mr.
Gempler, because it's extremely difficult to discern counterfeit documents
from the genuine articles, and antidiscrimination laws prohibit businesses
from asking for extra credentials just because someone looks foreign to an
employer. 
Mr. Berman, the lawyer for the plaintiffs, responds that there are
common-sense ways to identify illegal workers. "When the Immigration and
Naturalization Service pulls up to look over the fields, and everyone's
gone, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to know your work force is not
legal," Mr. Berman says. 
According to the suit, Zirkle Fruit and Matson Fruit have not only hired
hundreds of illegal aliens through Selective Employment, but all three
defendants were aware of the workers' status. And, the suit claims, Zirkle
Fruit and Matson Fruit hired these workers purposely. Illegal immigrants,
the suit contends, are in such economic and legal straits that they won't
press for higher wages, with the result being that both legal and illegal
employees are paid less than what the market would support for an all-legal
crew of harvesters and packers. 
The suit doesn't say how much seasonal laborers in the fruit industry should
be paid, contending only that the defendants' alleged employment of illegal
aliens kept wages for everyone artificially low. That, Mr. Berman says,
harms documented and undocumented workers alike. 
Many seasonal laborers, Mr. Berman says, "are in that gray world between
being a citizen and non-citizen. They're working for a multibillion-dollar
industry that much of Eastern Washington is allied with, so who's going to
help these folks? No one." 
Mr. Berman wants the court to certify the lawsuit as a class action, on
behalf of thousands of harvesters and packers hired through Selective
Employment. Without a class-action decision from a federal court, he says,
the industry won't be forced to change its behavior. 
The two plaintiffs in the case, Olivia Mendoza and Juana Mendiola, declined
to be interviewed. 
The seasonal-laborer dilemma isn't confined to Washington, says Sharon
Hughes, executive vice president of the National Council of Agricultural
Employers in Washington, D.C. 
Ms. Hughes says that the council has heard of incidents where more than 50%
of workers "have used fraudulent documents" to land farm jobs in a number of
states around the country. 
The council and other trade groups for farmers support as a solution the
proposed Agricultural Job Opportunity Benefits and Security Act, which is
co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith, an Oregon Republican. It would allow
undocumented workers who can prove they worked at least 150 days as
agricultural laborers within the past year to gain legal status as temporary
nonimmigrant workers. Those who work for at least 180 days annually for five
consecutive years would be eligible to apply for permanent U.S. residency. 
The Washington Growers League and other backers of the bill say it would
ease the labor shortage and eventually boost wages; critics contend it would
help farms avoid federal sanctions for hiring illegal workers. Officials
with the United Farm Workers of Washington in Sunnyside have condemned the
measure for promoting what is tantamount to "indentured servitude." 
With the situation as it is now, says Mr. Gempler of the growers league,
everyone in the tree-fruit sector is frustrated. "There's been a
wink-and-nod approach to immigration for decades by the government," he
says. "I think ultimately they're going to have to develop a better policy
to deal with the reality that many industries are living with." 
According to Bob Coleman, the acting INS district director in Seattle, the
agency is testing new policies to help employers. For example, it recently
started sending to orchards and packing houses lists of illegal immigrants
culled from past investigations. But, he says, there's only so much the INS
can do. 
"Worker rights are a big issue in Eastern Washington," he says. "We're
trying not to get wrapped up in that."

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