People of Painesville: The current state of migrant workers in one Northeast Ohio city
Traversing through dirt mounds and fields of saplings in a white Ford truck at the Klyn Nurseries, Hilarino Sanchez scans across the nursery for field workers. The bitter cold air wanes as the morning sun began to warm the fields, teeming with workers and machinery.
A stocky man with sun-kissed skin and crow’s feet scrawling from his eyes, Sanchez was a man of the fields before being assigned a more administrative role within the nursery.
“The thing about field work is that your age catches up to you, so you’re not as strong as you first were,” Sanchez said. “ Luckily for me I’m able to find another role here. Others, aren’t so lucky.”
Agriculture is important in Ohio. It is the largest industry in the state, bringing in more than $98 billion to the economy annually.
And when it comes to Painesville, a small northeast Ohio city just south of Lake Erie, farming seems like the only way to survive. Its economy is built around the garden nurseries within the city and the surrounding county.
But in an industry that relies on able-bodied individuals to work the nurseries: moving around a hot field, lifting hefty saplings and operating lumbering machinery, few apply.
According to the United States Department of Labor, the median annual wage for agricultural workers is $22,540 as of May 2016. Coupled with the difficulties that field workers face on a daily basis, employers within the agricultural business are unable to find a reliable workforce.
“Sometimes we’d get people who would start with us in the beginning of the week and as soon as they receive their first paycheck: they disappear.” Sanchez said. “It’s almost guaranteed.”
And Klyn Nurseries isn’t alone with this dilemma, as employers within the agricultural business nation-wide struggle to find sturdy and committed workers. Except if you’re considering one group.
“Historically immigrants have always been a big part of this area, but the hispanic community, right now, is a huge part of the nurseries,” said Catherine Bieterman, economic development director for Painesville. “They are huge here, they influence a lot of the community.”
Ohio farmers grow more than 30 commercial crops, and rely on migrant labor in the planting, cultivating, harvesting, processing and packaging of 70% of those crops, according to the 2012 Latino Community Report in Ohio.
So granted with federal H-2A approval, Mexicans are working the fields of Painesville, working overtime in hot temperatures within chemical-ridden fields.
Sanchez spots an older man in the distance prepping fern saplings and parks his truck close to him. Enrique Aqueirre, a thin, tan man sporting a beige cowboy hat, is bent over as he places a sapling into the burlap sack. In an industry where workers are scarce, a man of Aquirre’s age is a rare sight.
“Well work is plenty, there’s a lot of jobs in regards of landscaping and such but not much people want to work.” Aquirre said as he diligently tied a rope around the burlap sack. “He’s one of the few of his age still out here, aside from me.” Sanchez jested.
According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, the trend of citizens largely unwilling to engage in these physically excruciating activities leaves employers few options. One of these options is to use a temporary work visa referred as H-2A.
The federal guest worker program H-2A allows migrants to work temporary or seasonal agricultural work in the United States.
“And without that, we’d be dead in the water without any H-2A help because those guys (migrant workers) come back every year,” Joe Zampani, co-owner of the Lake County Nursery, said. ”They’ve been trained, they know the jobs and they’re willing to do the jobs.”
While only 4 percent of agricultural workers came through the guestworker program in 2015, the number is expected to surge under Donald Trump if promises of a border wall and mass deportation are met.
By making illegal migrant workers unattainable, people will have to use the H-2A federal program. Trump wants to open the doors of cheap migrant labor in America.
But according to nursery owners, the H-2A is ineffective and expensive.
Joe Zampani employs approximately 40 individuals at the Lake County Nursery, about half of those are Latinos. He says the costs of lodging migrants is expensive, and the rules and regulations surrounding H-2A is labor intensive and unnecessary.
“If (the government) thinks we don’t need migrant workers, then they are crazy,” Zampani said. “I don’t know why they are making this so hard.”
“There’s always been a drive from Mexicans to seek out work in the United States; jobs that aren’t necessarily wanted by the average American,” Sanchez said. “I feel that if not us, then who will?”
Sanchez doesn’t plan to leave the United States: he became an American citizen in 2005. “For people like myself, we plan on coming back for as long as we can,” Sanchez said. “Other’s aren’t as fortunate though.”
Pablo Torres, a migratory worker who later became an American citizen in 1999, recalls how the early 90’s had more Mexicans in the workforce.
“Now there’s more Puerto Ricans than mexicans in these types of jobs (agricultural). The Mexicans try to go where they pay them best.” Torres said.
“If the migrant worker population left, Lake County would be in trouble,” said Sen. John Eklund, the representative of Ohio’s 18th district that includes both Geauga and Lake counties. “While at first we may be ok, overtime (their absence) would put a huge hole in the community.”
While no nursery owners have personally addressed Eklund about their concerns, he can sense the pressure.
“Their concerns are not understated, there is a lot of money on the line,” Eklund said.
Recently Virginia Congressman Bob Goodlatte has introduced a bill that would create a new agricultural guestworker program. H-2C would replace H-2A while offering a variety of benefits to agricultural employers as well as the workers. Policies such as allowing unauthorized guest workers to be incorporated into the program, allowing non-seasonal agriculture workers to remain in the United States for up to three years and more.
According to a statement from American Farm Bureau’s Federation President Zippy Duvall: “The Ag Act’s proposed guest worker visa program would bring much needed improvements to the current system while addressing the needs of our current workforce and providing a streamlined visa process for skilled, agricultural workers in the future.”
This story is by Angelo Angel, Rachel Duthie and Rob DiFranco.
The City of Painesville is reliant on its immigrant population take a look at the current state of their lives here: https://t.co/J0lojqCyKy
— Rob DiFranco (@DiFranco_Rob) October 16, 2017
