Rural Laws: April, 2001 - Number #5

The California Farm Bureau reported that the top farm stories of 2000 were the November 2000 elections and low farm prices; farm labor did not make the top ten list. Manuel Cunha, president of the Nisei Farmers League and an advocate of a new guest worker program, received the Fresno county Farm Bureau's Distinguished Service Award in 2001.

EDD. California's Employment Development Department is working with the Social Security Administration to verify the social security numbers of all persons seeking services, including UI benefits. Under current procedures, if an applicant for UI benefits says she is a US citizen, there is no further verification. If the applicant says she is a legal immigrant, her A-Number is checked with the INS.

The SSA is working with State Employment Agencies such as EDD to verify SSNs of all applicants, either instantaneously or overnight. EDD receives 42 million wage reports a year for the 17 million persons with reportable wages in the state, but only 10 percent of these wage reports are checked as a result of workers applying to EDD for benefits.

Many farm employers assert that some workers cheat, working seasonally under one SSN, drawing UI benefits after being laid off, and then working for cash wages under another SSN. EDD does not believe that fraud in the receipt in UI benefits is as large as many farm employers assert. Their best estimate is that 12 percent of the cases or applications for UI benefits in California are fraudulent, and six percent of the benefits are lost to fraud.

In January 2001, Governor Gray Davis announced a $2.2 million grant to La Cooperativa Campesina de California to provide retraining and reemployment services to 440 displaced farm workers in 2001 at a cost of $5,000 each; the money is from the Governor's 15 percent Discretionary Fund of the federal Workforce Investment Act. Davis said: "Agriculture's labor demands have declined significantly as a result of encroaching development and increased mechanization." In fact, farm worker employment rose in the 1990s, as labor-intensive crop production increased. However, more farm workers are being hired through FLCs, and fewer are being hired directly by farm employers.

EDD Report 96A includes data on weeks of UI benefits paid by the SIC code of the laid-off worker's last employer. In 2000, there were 14.6 million weeks of UI benefits paid, down 10 percent from 1999. Workers laid off from agricultural employers collected 2.8 million weeks of UI benefits, about the same as in 1999, including 1.5 million weeks charged to agricultural service employers such as FLCs and 1.2 million weeks charged to crop and livestock employers.

Agriculture accounted for three percent of the average 15 million UI-covered employees in 2000, and 19 percent of the weeks of UI benefits paid, generating a UI benefits-employment share ratio of seven. Construction is also seasonal, but the UI benefits-employment share ratio was a much smaller 1.6; the manufacturing ratio was 1.2, but the ratio in food and kindred products was a much higher three. Services has UI benefits-employment ratio less than one- services accounted for 79 percent of California employment in 2000, but only 26 percent of weeks of UI benefits paid.

Enforcement. Stockton-based F. Bautista Farm Labor was charged by the INS on July 15, 2000 with knowingly hiring unauthorized workers and maintaining two sets of books, deducting payroll taxes from all workers, but forwarding them to government authorities only for legally authorized workers. According to the INS, owner Bautista set the investigation of his operation in motion when he told the San Francisco Chronicle on October 14, 1998 that "I've been a contractor here for 30 years, and the migra (INS) hasn't bothered me once."

The INS used undercover agents and informants to determine that Bautista, who employed a peak 200 workers, maintained an elaborate two-tiered payroll--one system for authorized workers and another for undocumented employees. All workers were paid in cash, but only legal workers received pay stubs, and only the earnings of legal workers were reported for payroll tax purposes. According to the complaint, Bautista charged workers $7 a day for rides to work and lunch, and workers were required to accept both services to work for Bautista. Bautista and his partner face a maximum penalty of ten years in prison and a $250,000 fine.

In February 2001, Bautista was sentenced to the seven months and six days he has spent in jail since his arrest, and then turned over to the INS, which will seek his deportation. Bautista immigrated when he was 27, 40 years ago, but never became a US citizen. The daughter and brother-in-law of Bautista pleaded guilty in October 2000 to charges that they conspired with Bautista "to regularly, repeatedly, and intentionally hire illegal aliens;" they were fined and placed on probation.

The California Highway Patrol reported 17 nonfatal farm-labor vehicle crashes in 2000, the fewest since 1992; the year 2000 was also the first year since 1992 that there was not a single farmworker fatality on the road in California. A specially trained 10-member unit of CHP officers aims to educate as well as fine operators of illegal farm labor vans. A new law prohibiting wooden benches in farm-labor vehicles takes effect March 31, 2002.

The CHP inspected 3,808 farm-labor vehicles in 2000 and conducted 109 enforcement sweeps. During those sweeps, 475 vehicles were cited for various violations and 314 vehicles were impounded because they were being operated by unlicensed drivers.

The farm-labor contractor who hired the 13 workers who died in a 1999 van crash was fined $21,500 for allowing the workers to be transported in an illegally operated vehicle.

Housing. The state of California is providing $46.5 million for farm worker housing in FY2000-01. A survey of 1,100 Farm Bureau members found that 61 percent agreed there was a "housing shortage," but only three percent planned to offer housing to workers in the future. Most of the farmers surveyed who provide housing are large livestock operations. Of those that provided housing, 58 percent provided single family homes- the houses were an average of 22 years old- and they charged worker-tenants an average $204 a month in rent.

The number of licensed farm labor camps in California fell from 5,000 in 1980 to 1,000 in 2000.

Governor Gray Davis proposed a $105 billion state budget for 2001-02, including $83 billion in general fund expenditures, with $33 billion or 39 percent of general fund expenditures going to K-12 education (a total $7,200 per student), $22 billion or 26 percent to health and human services, and $10 billion or 12 percent to higher education. California estimates the state's population to be 35 million; the Census reported 34 million.

Robert Rodriguez, "Number of farm-labor vehicle collisions last year hit lowest level in nearly a decade with new seat-belt laws," Frenso Bee, March 2, 2001. Chuck Squatriglia, "Big Drop in Accidents Involving Farm Labor Vehicles," San Francisco Chronicle, March 2, 2001. Denny Walsh, "Labor contractor faces possible deportation," Sacramento Bee, February 22, 2001. Ken Guggenheim, "Guest worker plans have broad support, uncertain prospects," February 9, 2001.