Half-measures in Colorado

While the U.S. is going to continue to argue about immigration over the next several years, there is still a need for temporary workers. Down where I live, it’s sheep shearers who are in short supply. Under the old system — or non-system — skilled shearers would come across the Rio Grande for the few weeks they were needed, pocket their cash and go home. These guys (a lot of them Mexican Mennonites) had no intention of abandoning their homes and families in Mexico, nor of moving their families to the U.S., but just wanted to earn a bit of cash during the season to help them make it through the year.

What drives at least some of the present Mexican migration is the inability of workers to cross easily and securely both borders. Making it harder to enter the U.S., the worker cannot go home to support his family once the seasonal job is finished, and has to move on to a second and third and fourth… job. He has to stay. And, if he’s a stand-up guy, make arrangements to bring his family here.

I’ve argued for some time that a neo-bracero program could work.  The World War II program, that lingered on into the 1960s, had more than a few problems.  Workers were supposed to elect their own union representatives, but the representatives were hand-picked by the employers, or — in California — by the state.  Workers were threatened with deportation for not playing ball or complaining about labor violations.  Worse, the workers were supposed to have ten percent of their paychecks set aside to be paid in Mexico. What happened to the money is anyone’s guess.  Some was stolen by Mexican or U.S. banks (or employers) — Wells Fargo assumed responsiblity for much of these debts several years ago when it bought out regional banks that had been involved in the program.  And record keeping — both because the program was originally set up overnight as an emergency war measure (U.S. military needs left both agriculture and the railroads desperately short of workers, and had to be replaced with Mexican workers within a matter of months) and because the technology needed to keep track of financial operations was still primitive paper and pencil records… and local farmers often didn’t understand that Jose Garcia Garcia and Jose Garcia Valdez and Juan Garcia Valdez were three different people.  Or the farmers just didn’t bother with the right papers, and the banks never said a word and …

Banking technology is now advanced enough to transfer funds easily between the U.S. and Mexico… and several banks operate in both countries.  Mexicans have an equivalent to the U.S. Social Security Number that eliminates the problem of not identifying the right individual payee, and — with debit cards — no actual cash need change hands.  The biggest problem I see if recruiting (I’d prefer it be done by the unions, though the States — like Colorado or Arizona, in these proposals — through their labor departments, might be in a good position to work as honest brokers.  The second biggest problem is assuring workers their contracts will be honored.  How the states, or the unions, would do this is something I don’t know.

What Colorado is proposing is far from perfect (it depends on punishments for overstaying visas, rather than rewards for returning home, and the record keeping seems more for tracking the workers’ movements than protecting his or her paycheck and safeguarding his labor and human rights), but it’s a reasonable first step to resolving the serious labor problem we’ve gotten ourselves into because of our short-sighted focus on “illegals” as a threat, and not a necessary spot labor pool.

From the 22 February 2008 Denver Post:

Frustrated with the federal bureaucracy and Congress’ failure to pass immigration reform, two Colorado lawmakers have proposed taking over a large part of the application process and opening offices in Mexico to find people who can arrive in time to pick the state’s crops and run cattle. Arizona is considering setting up its own temporary worker program to help all kinds of businesses suffering labor shortages.Colorado’s bipartisan bill essentially mirrors the federal H2-A program — including requirements that employers pay for food, housing and transportation and pay a set wage. But it puts the state in charge of recruiting and selecting workers.

Lawmakers see the first office possibly opening in Guadalajara, where Colorado already has an economic development office. The new office would give workers medical screenings and check to make sure they return home.

The change would require approval from the federal government, which isn’t commenting on the plan.

Supporters stress that it’s not a new path to U.S. citizenship or amnesty for undocumented immigrants. Workers who don’t return home on time would be punished by losing 20 percent of their pay, money which would be withheld by the state during their stay in Colorado.