OREGON ACTION AND THE IDAHO COMMUNITY ACTION NETWORK MOBILIZES TO STOP GUESTWORKER LEGISLATION!

Under guestworker programs, large growers and other employers temporarily “import” workers in conditions that amount to indentured servitude: workers must remain with the employer that has petitioned for them, and they are stripped of many workplace protections, such as the right to organize. NWFCO affiliates have successfully opposed legislation to expand our guestworker programs.

Oregon Action members mobilized to successfully pressure Oregon Representative Bob Smith to pull his 1998 guestworker legislation and stopped Oregon Senator Ron Wyden from introducing a similar bill. In 2002, fifty members of the Idaho Community Action Network met with Idaho Senator Larry Craig and urged him not to advocate guestworker legislation. Senator Craig is now the primary sponsor of the AgJOBS bill, which will provide many farmworkers with full immigration status and the chance to become U.S. citizens.