ANLA President Speaks to United Farm Workers

Washington, D.C. – For the first time in its 42-year history, a grower addressed the biennial convention of the United Farm Workers (UFW) union on August 29 in Fresno, Calif. Peter Orum, owner of the Midwest Groundcovers nursery operation in St. Charles, Ill., and newly elected president of the American Nursery & Landscape Association (ANLA), spoke to the estimated 1,000 UFW delegates and other attendees at the invitation of UFW president Arturo Rodriguez.

The unprecedented invitation came as both groups press for enactment of sweeping farm labor reform legislation known as AgJOBS (S.1645, H.R.3142). Years in the making, AgJOBS has the backing of 63 U.S. senators of both parties, and 117 representatives in the House. It also has attracted the endorsement of several major agricultural commodity and employer organizations, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO and other labor advocates, National Association of State Departments of Agriculture, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, and most major national Hispanic and immigrant rights group.

Orum addressed the UFW describing the challenges that have drawn historic adversaries together. “I am here today because we are fighting together for the future of American agriculture,” he said in his presentation. “The Labor and Immigration bill, S.1645 and H.R.3142 or AgJOBS as we call it, is absolutely essential to that future. If we do not have a dependable workforce now and in the future, the American specialty agriculture as we know it will little by little disappear to other countries. And that will happen to vegetables and fruit as well as to nursery plants, livestock and many other crops and products. We want to keep these farms and these jobs in America and we want our trained, experienced, and trusted workers to be able to keep working with us, to live openly in our society.”

ANLA notes that election-year politics are standing in the way of Congress swiftly enacting AgJOBS into law and beginning an overhaul of national immigration policies that significantly impact the agricultural and green industries.

Both Orum and Rodriguez joined in calling for President Bush to seize the opportunity at hand, by urging the Senate to pass AgJOBS immediately upon returning to Washington in September.