Farmers Urged to Step In, Assist Aliens : Growers Official Sees It as Way to Outmaneuver UFW on Amnesty

The vice president of the Western Growers Assn. on Thursday urged fruit and vegetable farmers to outmanuever the United Farm Workers union by helping illegal alien employees obtain legal-resident status under the new federal immigration reform law.

“It’s better for you to step in than to have someone step in for you . . . to avoid problems you never dreamed you were going to have,” said Marion Quesenbery, vice president and general counsel of the growers association, whose members grow and ship about 90% of the fresh vegetables produced in California and Arizona.

Quesenbery’s comments came at the first of 18 workshops in California and Arizona that the association is holding to acquaint its members with the new immigration law, which could provide amnesty for thousands of illegal aliens. About 50 growers attended Thursday’s session at Western Growers headquarters in Irvine.

Quesenbery’s remarks, and a response later by Dolores Huerta, UFW vice president, illustrate the potential power struggle between growers and the union over the amnesty issue.

Huerta, contacted after the workshop, said the union, which has lost a number of contracts with growers in recent years, does plan to help farm workers gain amnesty under the new law.

“We don’t like the idea of the employers doing it--it gives them a lot of power,” Huerta said. “I’m not really sure what their motives are.

“We would like to think they are honorable. But . . . it’s hard to believe they’re really trying to help workers. They will use it to make them beholden to them.”

The growers listened for nearly two hours as Quesenbery went through the new law step by step: When workers can start applying, when and how much employers would be fined for knowingly hiring illegal aliens, what documents employers should request to prove that a job-seeker is in the country legally, what growers could do if newly legalized workers left the farms in large numbers for other jobs.

Several of the law’s provisions will make the transition much easier on growers than on employers in other industries. One, which Quesenbery called “incredible,” allows growers to hire illegal aliens to work in the fields without penalty until Nov. 30, 1988. For other employers, the grace period ends in June, 1987. After that, an employer will get one warning for hiring illegal aliens. For each one hired after a warning, an employer could face a fine ranging from $250 to $10,000.

The bill also includes provisions to import more farm workers if the newly legalized residents leave the fields. Steve Borchard, who manages a cauliflower and squash farm in Chino for Placentia-based Kirk Produce, said after the workshop that he could live with the new law.

“If you’re going to be a good company, you have to keep good records,” Borchard said. “I don’t think that’s unreasonable. . . . And anytime you have good management, there is no room for unions. . . . If we help them legalize, they won’t be as likely to go to the unions.”

Borchard said he thinks that the law may drive up wages, however, as some workers leave the farms and others gain bargaining power through their legal status.

“Hopefully we can keep it from having too much of an impact,” he said.