Finding enough 'legal' workers

During this year’s inaugural GIE Media Horticultural Group Crystal Ball Project, 30 growers from the nursery and greenhouse segments came together in St. Louis to discuss the issues that are having the biggest impact on their businesses. Not surprisingly, labor was one of the major issues discussed.

As more states pass illegal immigration legislation, growers are left wondering where are the “legal” workers going to come from to keep their companies operating. Arizona, Georgia, Utah, Indiana and Alabama have already passed laws targeting businesses that hire illegal immigrants. More states are drafting similar legislation. The Alabama law, which was signed by Gov. Robert Bentley on June 9, will require every business in the state to start using the federal E-verify system beginning April 1, 2012.

The growers attending the Crystal Ball Project with past E-Verify experience said the system is not easy to use. E-Verify is an online, legal-employment-status verification system created by the Department of Homeland Security. The instruction manual for using the system is nearly 90 pages long.


Federal action
In June House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith introduced legislation to make the federal E-Verify system mandatory. American Nursery & Landscape Association said a bill mandating national use would significantly challenge the nursery and landscape industry and would slow the country’s economic recovery. It is estimated that 7 million undocumented workers are currently employed in the United States.

Craig Regelbrugge, ANLA’s vice-president for government relations and research, said that the legislation would have a major impact on the labor-intensive agriculture industry.

“While several considerations have been alluded too, none of them offer the guarantee of a legal and reliably available workforce that our industry and American agriculture, need to remain in business,” Regelbrugge said. “Expansion of E-Verify must be done concurrently with broader reforms to America’s broken immigration system.” 

David Kuack
dkuack@gie.net