Bush considering easing rules on foreign farm workers

[Omaha Steve]

Source: McClatchy Newspapers

By Michael Doyle

WASHINGTON — Farmers would have an easier and cheaper time securing foreign guest workers under pending Bush administration rules.

The controversial changes to the so-called H-2A guest-worker program could cut wages and speed worker recruitment. They also would relax requirements for providing foreign workers with housing and transportation.

"The Department of Labor is going to weaken oversight and enforcement," Bruce Goldstein, the executive director of the Farmworker Justice Fund, charged Wednesday.

A Labor Department spokesman said Wednesday night that the final rules would be made public Thursday and published in the Federal Register on Dec. 18, which means they'd take effect two days before Barack Obama is sworn in as president Jan. 20.

Read more: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/257/story/57549.html

[Xipe Totec]

1. Gorge, shut up and sit down,

The grownups will be here January 20th.

[RCinBrooklyn]

2. Undermining American workers until his final day.

[sandnsea]

3. They're living in fields as it is

Broken down travel trailers, nasty motels. It's stunning that they just keep piling shit on top of the heap they've already created, and there's nobody stopping them.

[merwin]

4. Something should be said that most states have a separate set of worker's rights

depending on if you're agriculture or not.

I've never understood that. Why treat people differently just because they happen to work on a farm. Maybe it's because they don't give a rat's ass about immigrants?