ANLA Legislative Conference Focuses On Key Labor Issues

About 200 attendees took part in the sixth biennial ANLA Legislative Conference, which focused on an educational track about three primary issues: labor and immigration reform, ergonomic standards and industry-specific research funding. ANLA raised almost $40,000 to fund its enhanced campaign on labor and immigration reform, and its political action committee also raised about $30,000 that will go towards supporting candidates with ties to the landscape and nursery industry in their election and reelection campaigns in 2002.

The conference kicked of with a "grassroots bootcamp" on Sunday afternoon, said Craig Regelbrugge, senior director of government relations for ANLA. Michael Dunn, president of Michael E. Dunn & Associates, provided an orientation for the next days’ events to brief attendees on the issues at hand and help them be more comfortable about speaking to legislators. "It almost goes without saying that a number of folks in this industry find the prospect of sitting down with their congressional representatives and staff to be an intimidating thing," noted Regelbrugge. "This session went a long way toward helping people understand that folks up on the Hill put their pants on the same way we do."

LABOR AND IMMIGRATION. Regelbrugge said the ANLA’s agenda for labor and immigration reform was the primary topic of the conference. ANLA has concentrated efforts to lobby lawmakers to revamp current immigration laws to focus more on the landscape industry’s short-term and long-term labor needs, needs that include a large number of immigrant workers.

Specifically, ANLA is pushing an agenda that focuses on reform to the federal government’s H2B worker program that provides temporary visas for immigrants conducting seasonal labor and on earned residency for illegal immigrants who are already working in the country. The latter issue was near the top of Mexican President Vicente Fox’s list when he visited with President Bush in early September. Earned residency has also been a key part of Bush’s agenda, and the country was moving towards some possible resolve on the issue before the events of last week.

"In days leading up to Vicente Fox’s visit, there was a sense that the Bush administration was tapping the brakes," explained Regelbrugge, noting that some government officials warned that providing residency for aliens could be perceived as rewarding illegal behavior. However, he noted that Fox was adamant about the issue during his visit and Congress was likely to make some decisions before its winter break.

Progress has been especially evident on the agriculture front because that sector has been developing a program for several years. Therefore, Regelbrugge said agriculture could serve as a prototype for the service worker side of this industry, which includes landscape and nursery workers. But Regelbrugge said development of a program could have easily worked in the opposite direction - from the service side to the agricultural side. "The existing H2B guest worker program is a far more workable program than the agriculture guest worker program," he noted, "with one caveat, and that is participation in it is capped right now."

The second day of the legislative conference included speakers focusing on the Bush administration’s policies and priorities on immigration issues. Regelbrugge said a U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) spokesperson was guardedly optimistic about the immigration policies that ANLA has been advocating: earned legalization to undocumented workers and guest worker program improvements.

ANLA split the conference agenda up to lobby the Senate on Monday and the House of Representatives on Tuesday, and presented orientations each morning to prepare for the visits. "These sessions gave ample opportunity for folks to ask questions and get comfortable with how to respond to some of the difficult questions we felt they would surely receive," explained Regelbrugge.

Monday’s Senate briefing included presentations from hired consultants working on the labor and immigration reform effort who are knowledgeable about the technical aspects of U.S. labor policy. The speakers spoke about the opportunities that exist to build coalitions to get ANLA’s immigration and labor reform issues at the forefront of congressional leaders’ agendas.

Tuesday’s House briefing included three speakers from the Hill who are "thought leaders" on immigration and labor issues, according to Regelbrugge. He said both Rep. Chris Cannon, R-Utah, and Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, are strong proponents of earned legalization for some of the workforce that is currently in the country working illegally but contributing to the well being of the economy. The two also support the prospect of reform to guest worker programs.

The third speaker, Rep. Howard Berman, R-Calif., is not the biggest proponent of increasing rights for immigrant labor, said Regelbrugge. However, Regelbrugge was impressed that Berman, knowing that the audience was somewhat less than receptive to his ideas, agreed to speak at the conference. "The fact that he joined us speaks to the credibility that ANLA has been able to establish - not necessarily agreement, but credibility as a good faith negotiator," said Regelbrugge.

Berman has close ties to labor unions, particularly the farm workers union, so he has acted as a negotiator between the labor unions and lobbyists like ANLA that are pushing for immigrant labor reform. "He left leaving a strong indication that there’s room for this process to continue and that negotiations need to be elevated to next level," noted Regelbrugge.

ERGONOMICS. Ergonomics issues were also a focus of ANLA’s legislative conference. Regelbrugge explained that in the waning days of the Clinton administration a final rule on ergonomics was issued that would have been extremely difficult for employers to comply with. Therefore, ANLA joined in two of the several lawsuits mounted against the decision, including one spearheaded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

In March, the new Republican Congress used a law called the Congressional Review Act to overturn the Clinton administration decision. The reversal vacated the ergonomics standard and precluded the Occupational, Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) from establishing rules structurally similar to the ones previously in effect, thus leaving a period of no ergonomics rules.

"We believe that OSHA ought to fundamentally change its view of its appropriate role on ergonomics," explained Regelbrugge, "rather than issuing a broad-based regulation that is ambiguous and leaves a lot of employers wondering what they ought to do next." He said several workplace situations are pretty well understood, and OSHA should focus on those first to develop a framework to deal with less understood workplace situations among individual industries. "There may be room for industry guidelines as opposed to sweeping standards," he said.

Because workers’ compensation incentives exist for employers to create a safe workplace, Regelbrugge said mechanisms are already in place to encourage proper employee safety. And the landscape and nursery industry could play a key role in helping OSHA understand the needs of the industry. "There’s a lot of information sharing in this industry and a lot of focus on best practices. Some of that can be institutionalized more," he noted.

Regelbrugge predicted that the Bush administration was prepared to begin laying out a plan for addressing the ergonomics issue sometime in September. However, that could likely be put off until next year due to Congress’ concentrated efforts on addressing terrorism issues following last week’s attacks.

Regardless of the timing, Regelbrugge said OSHA could "change from a punitive regulatory agency to more of a partner designed to yield results rather than lawsuits" if it works with individual industries on policy reform.

PLANT RESEARCH. Because crops specific to the landscape and nursery industry have historically received only about 0.06 percent of the federal agricultural budget, Regelbrugge said ANLA is lobbying Congress to appropriate more funds to research aimed at ways to improve these crops. It’s a request that makes economic sense because the production side of the industry represents about 11 percent of the overall value of U.S. crops, he noted.

ANLA is seeking appropriations for an additional $1 million for research next year with the ultimate goal of a $20 million research initiative. The industry currently receives $4.7 million that is funneled through the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s research arm, the Agriculture Research Service.

Industry-related agriculture research focuses on items like disease and insect resistance and the ability to deliver a healthy plant that is going to better survive transport and installation into a landscape. Additionally, research is aimed at determining ways to develop crops with reduced risk materials that are not likely to be the target of regulatory actions to take them off the market.