[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 73 (Wednesday, May 22, 1996)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E880]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  AGRICULTURE EMPLOYERS SHOULD NOT BE EXEMPT FROM PAYING UNEMPLOYMENT 
                               INSURANCE

                                 ______


                           HON. GEORGE MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, May 22, 1996

  Mr. MILLER of California. Mr. Speaker, the Small Business Job 
Protection Act of 1996 has an ironic name since, contrary to the 
recommendation of a Federal commission, one provision of it would give 
a special exemption from Federal unemployment tax to agricultural 
employers who give jobs to temporary foreign workers. If the U.S. 
Congress intends to protect American jobs for American workers, then it 
should not approve the proposed exemption for employers of H-2A Program 
guestworkers.
  The Federal Advisory Council on Unemployment Compensation in 1994 
made a specific recommendation on this issue after hearing all the 
evidence and from all the parties. The Advisory Council said, ``* * * 
the wages of alien agricultural workers (H2-A workers) should be 
subject to FUTA taxes.'' The chairperson of that Council was Janet 
Norwood, the highly respected former Chief of the Bureau of Labor 
Statistics under the Bush and Reagan administrations.
  We in Congress gave the H-2A growers a temporary exemption from the 
Federal Unemployment Tax Act [FUTA] and that exemption was extended 
repeatedly. Finally, on December 31, 1994, we let this tax exemption 
expire, after receiving the recommendation and report of the Advisory 
Council on Unemployment Compensation.
  Now the growers who hire temporary foreign workers want another 
exemption from the unemployment tax. We should not grant it to them.
  This tax exemption would create an incentive to hire temporary 
foreign agricultural workers by making it cheaper to hire them than to 
hire U.S. workers.
  Such an incentive against hiring U.S. farmworkers is especially 
inappropriate at this time. Numerous studies have found that U.S. 
farmworkers are suffering from high unemployment and underemployment, 
stagnant or declining real wages, poor living and working conditions, 
and below poverty earnings. Partly for these reasons, the House of 
Representatives in late March overwhelmingly defeated an effort by 
agribusiness to gain permission to bring in several hundred thousand 
farmworkers from abroad under poor wages and working conditions. 
Without a shortage of domestic farmworkers, we should not encourage the 
hiring of foreign guestworkers.
  In addition, the Advisory Council said that the ``vast majority, 97 
percent, of the cost of the H-2A certification process is funded 
through the FUTA tax,'' since the fees paid by growers do not cover 
anything close to the Government's cost of operating the temporary 
foreign worker program. This tax exemption will put the burden on the 
American taxpayer to pick up more of the cost of employers hiring 
foreign workers.
  The unemployment insurance program is designed to spread the costs of 
minimizing the negative effects on society of unemployment, and 
employers of foreign farmworkers should not be exempt from sharing in 
that cost.

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