Editor's note: This is the second story in a series written by High Plains Journal editors on immigration and how the issue affects agriculture and rural communities in the High Plains and Midwest.
By Doug Rich 
Rightly or wrongly there are some common beliefs about the agricultural industry and its immigrant workforce. Many people believe that employers are the problem because they don't do enough to verify employees and that these are low-paying jobs attractive only to immigrants. "The reality is that farm laborers across the country are often immigrants," said U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns in a speech in Sacramento, Calif., on June 9. "It is their entry-point, if you will, for a better life." Meat processing A large portion of the immigrant workforce in this country and particularly in the High Plains, is employed in the meat processing industry. According to a statement from the American Meat Institute (AMI), agriculture is one of the largest sectors in the U.S. economy and red meat production accounts for the largest segment of that sector with $100 billion in annual sales and 500,000 employees. "Since the beginning of the 20th century, the U.S. meat industry has attracted foreign-born workers because we pay competitive wages for jobs that require hard work, but minimal previous training and often no experience," according to David Ray, spokesman for the American Meat Institute. The primary governing law for hiring a new worker is the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. This requires employers to verify the identity and employment eligibility of every new employee, citizens and non-citizens. Employers are required to fill out an I-9 form for every new employee. The only exceptions to the I-9 form are persons hired before Nov. 7, 1986, persons employed for casual domestic work in a private home on a sporadic, irregular, or intermittent basis; persons who are independent contractors; or persons who provide labor but are employed by a contractor providing contract services. I-9 form The I-9 form requires that potential employees first verify their identity and then their employment eligibility. Some documents can identify both, including a U.S. passport, certificate of naturalization, temporary resident card or reentry permit card. If workers do not have a document to verify both, they must present one document to verify identity and one to verify employment eligibility. Documents ranging from a driver's license to a school record or report card can be used to verify identity only. A U.S. social security card, Native American tribal document, or a certification of birth abroad issued to the Department of State can be used to establish employment eligibility only. According to Sean McHugh, vice-president of Public Relations at Swift & Co., one of the problems employers have with the I-9 form is that there are 29 acceptable documents that a person can use to verify identity, employment eligibility, or both. There is an anti-discrimination clause in the I-9 form that states employers cannot specify which documents they will accept from an employee. "We as employers cannot ask for additional documentation," says Sean McHugh. "As an employer if we don't do enough to verify identity and employment eligibility we are on the wrong side of the Immigrations and Customs Enforcement branch of the Department of Justice and if we do too much we are on the wrong side of the Office of Special Council that handles the anti-discrimination portion of the 1986 law," says McHugh. In fact Swift & Co., was cited by the Office of Special Council for being too aggressive in verifying the work authorization status of a potential employee in 2002 and fined $2.5 million. This case was settled in 2004 with no admission of guilt for $187,000. Seasonal workers Even seasonal workers must provide papers stating they are legal immigrants, according to John McClung, president of the Texas Produce Association. "These are people that have legitimate papers that pass inspection by an employer," says McClung. "This does not mean that some of these papers are not counterfeit." He said that nationally it has been estimated that 70 percent of the immigrant workforce in agriculture is illegal. A background paper written by Steven Camarota for the Center for Immigration Studies, stated that nearly half of the post-2000 arrivals (3.7 million) were estimated to be illegal aliens. The American Meat Institute says the meat packing industry has been a leader in the use of the Basic Pilot electronic employment verification program. This is a social security number verification program operated by the federal government. Swift & Co., has been using this program since 1999. "We have chosen to use this volunteer program as another legal means to screen our employee base," says McHugh. "But the system is not perfect. It merely indicates the fact that the name and number you have input into the system comes back as a match. It will not tell you if there are currently active duplicates in the system." Currently in the U.S. less than one-tenth of one percent of employers choose to use the Basic Pilot program, according to McHugh. There is another program called the Verification Information System which does check for duplicates. There is a charge for this service while the Basic Pilot program is a free. Median income 
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics the median weekly earnings of foreign-born full-time wage and salary workers was $511 in 2005 compared to $677 for native born workers. Foreign born men earned $523 per week compared to $760 for native born men and foreign born women earned $487 compared to $596 for native born women. Earnings for foreign born workers increased with education just as they do for native born workers. The average hourly earning for meat packing and processing workers, according to the Department of Labor was nearly $12.03 per hour, or $480 per week, or $25,000 per year. This does not include benefits such as heath benefits. How does this compare to other occupations in Iowa, the largest pork producing state or in Kansas, the largest beef producing state? In Iowa preschool teachers made $20,490, paramedics made $24,680, and reporters made $29,300. In Kansas preschool teachers made $24,550, paramedics made $21,590, and reporters brought home $29,560. These figures are from a 2004 report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Many immigrant farm laborers are employed in part-time or seasonal work. John McClung, president of the Texas Produce Association, said an immigrant workforce is essential to his industry. He said most of those workers are seasonal and work on a piece-meal basis. They make around the minimum wage and on a good day can make more than minimum wage. Seasonal workers do not have health insurance or other benefits. |
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In 2003 the Urban Institute released a profile of the low-wage immigrant workforce. The profile stated that immigrants hourly wages are lower on average than those for native born workers and nearly half earn less than 200 percent of the minimum wage compared to one-third of native workers. The profile also noted that two of every five low-wage immigrant workers are undocumented. Education was a factor in this profile, also. It stated that three-fourths of all U.S. workers with less than a ninth-grade education are immigrants. Consistent with industry averages, Swift & Co., production workers earn around $12 an hour. Every employee at Swift & Co. is offered the same benefit package and McHugh says close to 80 percent of their eligible employees participate in the Swift Health Plans. "We offer medical coverage at a rate that we believe is substantially below the national average," McHugh says. "Nationally about 10 percent of the production costs relative to agriculture relates to farm labor," said U.S. Secretary of Agriculture Mike Johanns. "For some horticulture crops labor costs exceed 30 percent of the total production costs." According to an estimate by the United Food and Commercial Workers, 60 percent of meat packing employees are represented by a union, high compared to an overall union representation rate in the U.S. is less than 7.9 percent. Demographics 
Demographics play a role in the immigrant workforce issue, particularly in the meat packing industry. The top meat packing states are Kansas, Nebraska, and Texas. Most of the plants are located in areas with declining populations. Hog processing facilities follow the same pattern. In general, processing plants are located close to where animals are raised and fed, which is usually in agricultural belts and rural areas of given states. "Most rural communities have experienced net population decline in recent years," says Sean McHugh. "This creates a shrinking workforce in those communities. Sixty percent of the counties in the Great Plains states experienced population declines from 1990 to 2000 and many of those same communities have an aging populations as well." This creates a void in the available worker supply that is being filled by immigrant workers. "The U.S. meat packing industry and the U.S. in general requires a growing workforce to meet the needs of our economy," says McHugh. "Those needs cannot be met through current domestic growth. The U.S has to be a net importer of workers to meet our needs. On any given day we have hundreds of job openings across the beef and pork complex." Swift & Co. has two beef plants in Nebraska, one in Colorado and one in Texas. It also has pork processing plants in Iowa, Minnesota, and Kentucky. According to the U.S. Department of Labor and the Bureau of Labor Statistics foreign-born workers made up 15 percent of the U.S. civilian labor force age 16 and over in 2005 and accounted for since 2000, for 46 percent of the net gain in the total labor force. Although there have been many advances in the mechanization of agriculture, it is still a labor intensive industry. This is particularly true in meat processing which does not lend itself to a great deal of mechanization or automation. Employers in the agricultural industry will continue to need a large workforce to meet their needs. Doug Rich can be reached by phone at 785-749-5304 or by e-mail at richhpj@aol.com. Date: 7/5/06 
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