The Ithaca Journal (New York), April 18, 2006, Tuesday

The Ithaca Journal, April 18, 2006, Tuesday

Immigrants lend a hand on TC farm
Groton couple finds solution to staffing problem in legal Mexican workers

By KERRIE FRISINGERJournal Staff
http://www.theithacajournal.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060418/NEWS01/604180311/1002

For years, Ivy and Ron Space struggled to find enough employees for their 450-cow dairy farm in Groton. Workers failed to show up, others left the area and classified ads drew calls from within prisons.
“The one thing that I thought might drive us out of the business was when we couldn't find help,” Ivy Space said.
About five years ago, though, the couple met a man who helped place Hispanic immigrant workers on dairy farms. Now, the Spaces legally employ five men from Mexico. They stay on the farm for several years before returning home to their families and rotating with other workers, many of whom are relatives.
The changes at the Space farm fall in line with larger trends, according to researchers at Cornell University. In a series of policy briefs from 2004 and 2005, Max Pfeffer and Pilar Parra wrote that immigration has stemmed population declines in some rural New York communities, and that many of those immigrants come as agricultural workers.As protests over a proposed federal crackdown on illegal immigration sweep major American cities, Pfeffer, who is the chairman of the development sociology department, also headed a panel discussion last week about immigration trends and policy in the state.
Lance Compa, a panelist from Cornell's School of Industrial and Labor Relations, argued that tougher enforcement of labor laws would prevent some employers from using immigration as a source of cheap and unprotected labor.
Vernon Briggs, also from ILR, argued that while American taxpayers and low-wage earners lose when foreign labor is permitted through current immigration law, the solution isn't to be found in the policy changes under consideration in Congress. A better policy would consider what newcomers can offer the U.S., he said.
“There's no such thing ... as jobs Americans won't do,” said Briggs, who argued that it's actually a matter of compensation and, sometimes, working conditions. “The one exception to this may be agriculture.”
Ivy Space knows immigration is a controversial issue, she said. So, when the family first started hiring Mexican laborers but had yet to establish living quarters on the farm, they looked long and hard for a rental location where their employees would feel comfortable.
The workers, who have proper documentation to work, make about $24,000 a year including overtime, Space said. She knows the criticism that wages to foreign workers don't stay in this country, and it's true that the employees from the Groton farm send money back home to create a better life for their families in Mexico. But, Space said, her workers also pay into a social security system from which they won't draw benefits and put money into the local economy through weekly grocery purchases.
And politics aside, there are barns to be cleaned, calves to be fed and cows to be milked — and an apparent absence of local residents who want the work. The milking alone would take two people 21 hours a day, according to Space.
“You can't be small enough to do it all yourself anymore,” she said. “You won't make any money.”
Contact: kfrising@ithacajournal.com
Originally published April 18, 2006