California lawmakers just passed Assembly Bill 1783, to encourage construction of badly needed housing for California farm workers and block growers from using state taxpayer funds to help Donald Trump expand the abusive H-2A guest program program that frequently replaces U.S. farm workers with foreign guest workers, including those laboring on Trump Vineyards. Gov. Newsom should sign the bill into law.
The women and men who produce our rich bounty of food have long endured miserable housing conditions. Many live in squalid and overcrowded houses or apartments, often in regions such as the Central Coast or Wine Country where even middle class residents can’t find affordable housing. Too many farm workers sleep under bridges, on the ground, in tents or cars. Old traditional farm labor camps, controlled by employers or labor contractors, were cold, damp, hot and indecent. There were no tenancy protections or rent stability. They were not protected by federal housing regulations.
AB 1783, authored by Assemblymember Robert Rivas and sponsored by the United Farm Workers, represents a step forward by helping relegate indecent housing policies to where they belong—in the past. In his January State of the State address, Gov. Newsom made housing a priority: “If we want a California for all, we have to build housing for all.” Farm workers shouldn’t be the last in line.
This bill would speed up that line by supporting decent quality housing for farm worker families. Many farms have surplus land that could be used to build safe and secure housing for farm workers. But the land needs rezoning, which is often blocked by communities that resist farm worker housing.
So AB 1783, the Farm Worker Housing Act of 2019, would create a streamlined process under which farm worker housing on land zoned for agricultural uses would only be subject to a ministerial approval process and would not require conditional use permits if it meets certain objective quality standards.
Housing would not be eligible for this easing of the approval process if it is substandard barracks-style construction, if it promotes gender discrimination or discourages family unity—such as all-male dorms.
Abuses of farm workers have hailed from the duel role of employer and landlord; it would be banned under the bill. An employer of farm workers could not also serve as a landlord.
There could be no for-profit management. Housing would have to be managed by a qualified affordable housing organization.
Finally, AB 1783 would prohibit any state subsidy or expedited approval for housing H-2A guest workers - modern day indentured servants.
Known as the “Harnessed-2 Abuse” program, the H-2A system is riddled with exploitation and wage theft. Guest workers are harnessed to individual employers who control daily meals, housing, transportation and immigration status. The program discriminates against women and discourages family units. More than 95 percent of H-2A workers in California fields are men. H-2A recruiters often explicitly exclude women. Federal law already requires growers using H-2A workers to provide decent housing for them. Why should the taxpayers help pay for it?
Now Trump is proposing harmful new federal rules making it easier to replace more U.S. farm workers with guest workers, pay U.S. farm workers less and provide them with fewer protections. These rules would financially benefit Donald Trump personally since foreign H-2A workers toil at his Trump Vineyards.
Do California taxpayers want their housing resources spent to help Trump expand the agricultural guest worker program when there is such a shortage of public assets to produce affordable, family housing for farm workers and all Californians?
The state’s housing shortage isn’t only an urban dilemma; it also plagues rural areas, especially those relying on agriculture. Gov. Newsom can move California forward with AB 1783.
The governor quoted Cesar Chavez in his inaugural address last January and again this month while celebrating Hispanic Heritage Month, when he said Cesar Chavez “envisioned” a California “where the sons and daughters of the farm workers he organized could excel in every conceivable endeavor, including the highest levels of government.”
Assemblymember Rivas, author of AB 1783, is a son of farm workers who were UFW members. So Gov. Newsom can truly honor the civil rights and farm labor leader’s vision by signing the Farm Worker Housing Act of 2019, AB 1783.
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By Teresa Romero, President, United Farm Workers. UFW President Teresa Romero is the first Latina immigrant president of a national union in the United States.