University
of California
AgJOBS-1998
to the links below
|| to AgJOBS-99
University
of California
AgJOBS-1998
to the links below
|| to AgJOBS-99
The Agricultural Job Opportunity Benefits And Security Act Of 1998 was a legislative proposal to create a work visa program that would serve the needs of agricultural employers and workers more effectively than the existing H-2A program. The U.S. Senate passed it on July 23, 1998, as an amendment to S.2260, the fiscal-1999 Appropriations Act for the Departments of Commerce, Justice, and State, the Judiciary, and Related Agencies. The House of Representatives passed a companion appropriations bill that did not include a similar agricultural jobs program, so the fate of the proposal rested with House-Senate conferees. In October 1998, congressional leaders and White House staff agreed on an omnibus appropriations bill that excluded AgJOBS, thus ending any chance of enactment by the 105th Congress.
Among key elements of the AgJOBS-98 proposal were: (1) a national system of voluntary registries of legally authorized workers interested in farm employment; (2) streamlined procedures for admitting and extending the stay of nonimmigrant agricultural workers to fill jobs left open after use of the registries; (3) market-based wages, protection of fair labor standards, and employer-paid housing and transportation. Support for the bill was bipartisan -- though by no means overwhelming, and its co-authors believed they had struck a fair balance of farmer, worker, and consumer interests. The proposal was vigorously opposed, however, by labor unions, Latino leaders, and other worker advocates, who contended that the farm labor supply is quite abundant and that U.S. resident as well as guest workers would suffer under its terms.
The Senate floor discussion that preceded the (68-31) vote to adopt this bill rang with familiar themes. In defending the proposal, co-author Joseph Wyden said, "I hope this amendment is just the beginning of the debate on agricultural labor." We can expect continuing discussion in the next Congress about sufficiency of farm labor supply and the need for a new or revised agricultural work visa program.
Links below go to the AgJOBS-98 text, position statements by worker and grower organizations, and other relevant documents.