Photo: UFW
A new campaign urges Americans to apply for farm worker positions.
With the majority of U.S. farm workers undocumented, the United Farm Workers UFW) is launching a national campaign challenging U.S. citizens and legal residents to replace immigrant field laborers. To survive, the agricultural industry would need at least half a million citizens or legal residents, UFW President Arturo S. Rodríguez announced. He was joined in kicking off the “Take Our Jobs” campaign by Rob Williams, director of the Migrant Farmworker Justice Project, and Kern County Supervisor Michael Rubio during a telephonic news conference last week.
Organizers of the campaign plan to take it to members of Congress and the general public through a national broadcast appearance on the Colbert Show set for July 8 in an effort to generate public interest in the plan. The effort spotlights the immigrant labor issue and underscores the need for reforms without which the domestic agricultural industry could be crippled, leading to more jobs moving off shore.
“The farm worker population of the United States is overwhelmingly immigrant with about 85 percent of them born outside of the United States. Today, the vast majority of farm workers are unauthorized,” Williams said.
County Supervisor Rubio, who represents the second largest agricultural county in the nation, said the industry is utterly dependant on a foreign-born workforce. And even with double digit unemployment rates, few legal residents are seeking jobs on the farm, he said. Rodríguez said the deplorable status quo is hurting growers, farm workers and consumers.
"We support farm workers regardless of their legal status or nationality,” Rodríguez said. “Farm workers do the work that most Americans are not willing to do. Our current labor force is comprised of professional farm workers who possess essential skills needed to maintain the viability of the agricultural industry. But our nation’s struggling economy has fueled an increasingly ugly
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