Great Leap Backwards
Leave it to the Bushistas to get one teeny-tiny thing right (lifting the cap on the number of foreign seasonal farm workers) and screw up everything else. Royally. Farmworker Justice, via The Sanctuary:
The Bush Administration today finalized midnight regulation changes to slash wages, make it easier to hire foreign workers, and reduce worker protections for the nation’s farmworkers. The changes apply to the H-2A agricultural guestworker program and were published today in the Federal Register. They will take effect January 17.
The DOL’s many harmful revisions to the H-2A visa program include reducing obligations for growers to effectively recruit U.S. workers before applying to bring in guestworkers, lowering the wage rates by changing the program’s wage formula and eliminating government oversight of the program.
I don’t recall either proposed Obama Administration Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napalitano, nor Secretary of Agriculture designate Tom Vilsak having ever showed much interest in protecting farm workers, so don’t expect immediate relief from this neo-bracero non-program.
mexfiles.net 