Wanted: Workers who will labor for less

AUTRYVILLE -- Mario Olmos Martinez grew up in Mexico tagging along with his father to electrical jobs, learning a trade even as the work grew scarce. Sometimes his father could buy nothing but beans for the family; a day's worth of milk cost eight precious pesos they rarely had.

Then came this year, when Martinez, 20, traveled a thousand miles to join his papa on a new job, this one among the vast sandhills of southeastern North Carolina, tending fields of strawberries, squash and melons.

Martinez climbs into his bunk close to midnight some nights, occasionally clutching a photograph of his own young family - his wife, Miriam, and a boy, Irving, a year old, standing by the car he sold for $600 to get to North Carolina. He hears rumors about the immigration clash in Washington and wonders what it could mean.

Martinez and his father, Salvador Olmos Riano, 53, are different from most of the 12 million undocumented immigrants hiding in the United States. They have papers.

The men could have sneaked into North Carolina by way of the Arizona desert. Instead, they followed the rules, coming legally through an agricultural guest-worker program. As immigration reform is being debated in the U.S. Senate, the value of the guest-worker program is one of the few things many Washington politicians can agree on.

The tens of thousands of legal workers who would be affected by reforms have so far had little say in the proposed changes. Living on the same farms where they work and toiling days that often stretch from dawn to dusk, many of those workers find their knowledge of the debate is sketchy.

The Senate bill would expand the federal H-2A program that funnels foreign workers into U.S. fields each growing season. It would cut bureaucratic red tape for farmers.

It also would slash wages for Martinez, Riano and thousands of other legal farm workers. Some farmers and their advocates say the bill wouldn't cut wages far enough.

The bill would bring a 16 percent wage cut for workers in North Carolina, rolling back wages from the current guaranteed $9.02 an hour to 2003 levels of $7.57 an hour.

It also could boost longtime workers' chances of earning permanent status and green cards.

This is what has Martinez and Riano thinking. If they had visas, they could maybe find work closer to the border so they could be closer to their families. They could find work as electricians, making $15 an hour.

Or they could return to Jackson Farming Co. in Autryville, where the men spent a day last week harvesting, cleaning and boxing 20,000 cantaloupes that would arrive in grocery stores around the state within 48 hours.

Nationally, North Carolina is the largest user of the federal farm worker program, with an estimated 12,500 such workers in the state in 2006, according to the N.C. Department of Labor. Aides to Sens. Richard Burr and Elizabeth Dole of North Carolina say wages are the top concern of farmers who come to speak with them about immigration.

Both Burr and Dole support the guest-worker program, including the proposed wage cuts. But both also have taken votes against the overall immigration bill, with Dole especially active in trying to kill the comprehensive reform deal.

For now, the wages go home. Martinez and Riano each try to send $300 home a week. Martinez calls his young wife, asks if the wired money arrived, then asks about his son, who has been suffering from bronchitis since January. He has hospital bills and medicine costs.

They think their current wages are fair. Asked about the proposed cut to $7.57 an hour, they pause and then nod that yes, that would be fair.