Amnesty Law Puts Pinch on Labor Pool

One day last spring, San Juan Capistrano farmer Shigeru Kinoshita summoned his dozen workers and told them the new immigration law gave them no immediate cause for concern. Those in the country illegally had a full year and a half to apply for legal residency, and, in the meantime, could continue working on his farm.

Despite his reassurances, two of the workers packed up and left for Mexico the next day. Like many other illegal aliens, they apparently believed they would face harsher sanctions than before if caught by immigration agents.

Their positions are still vacant, and Kinoshita says he has been forced to pay overtime wages to keep his customers supplied with his fast-selling strawberries, bell peppers and corn.

At DBS Wood Products in Garden Grove, brothers David and Ben Perez saw three of their 15 workers leave last spring, and now they are trying to persuade others with similar thoughts to stay.

“I tell them to wait and see what happens. . . . I’ve even offered them more money,” said David Perez, who with his brother started the small furniture business in Anaheim 21 years ago. “But I think they’ve already got one foot out the door--buying little presents for their families back home, that sort of thing.”

This month, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service begins implementing the linchpin of the Immigration Reform and Control and Act of 1986: sanctions on employers who knowingly hire ‘I tell them to wait and see what happens. . . . I’ve even offered them more money.’

David Perez

illegal aliens. The law will enable hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens who have been in the United States for several years to gain legal status and, eventually, citizenship. But it was also intended to stop the steady flow of illegal aliens who have entered the country in recent years seeking a better life.

If employers no longer hire them, the reasoning goes, illegal aliens will stop coming. Employers now are required to ask all job applicants for identification and proof of citizenship or legal residence--and to sign affidavits attesting that they believe the papers are genuine. Employers who violate the new law could face jail terms or fines as high as $10,000 for every illegal alien hired.

But undocumented workers face no greater penalty now than they did before the new law took effect. If arrested by immigration authorities, an illegal alien probably would be bused back to the border, just as before. That does not, however, appear to be generally understood.

For some Orange County employers, the law will mean little more than increased paper work. But others already are struggling to adjust to a rapidly changing labor market. Interviews with employers in several industries, including agriculture, services and manufacturing, indicate that:

- Fewer illegal aliens are applying for the low-wage, high-grime jobs they have increasingly dominated in recent years.

- Many workers already have left the country, and employers fear their numbers will increase.

- Immigrants who stay and receive legal status, along with other, already legal, workers in low-wage jobs, recognize their increased value and are demanding better pay.

Some employers have gone to considerable expense to legalize their workers and, they hope, keep them. Mort Hermann, co-owner of Hermann & Jensen Nurseries, figures he may end up spending $20,000 on attorney’s fees to help “maybe 100” employees qualify for amnesty. The workers will pay about half the cost through small payroll deductions each week, he said.

Other growers and nursery owners have contracted with one of two legalization programs run by two different agricultural groups--the United Agricultural Assn. and Alien Legalization for Agriculture.

Local Alien Legalization director Tony Bonilla recently traveled to Bordier’s Nursery in East Irvine, where he explained the amnesty process to the company’s approximately 100 workers, all of them Latino.

But the workers have not been responding, said Rick Dominge, vice president of Bordier’s. “We don’t have people signing up, at least not in the numbers we were hoping to get,” Dominge said. Some people may be applying through Catholic Charities or through private lawyers, Dominge said, while others are still scared that they or their family members may be deported if the INS rejects their applications. The INS has insisted that will not happen.

Not Enough help

Like several other wholesale nurseries in Orange County, Bordier’s was shorthanded during the busy spring season. Dominge, who has resorted to placing help wanted ads in newspapers, said the company also recently raised wages 19% to attract applicants. The starting wage is now $4.10.

Sometimes, though, even more money is not enough to keep or attract workers. David Perez says he would give Marco Antonio, a burly, 32-year-old Mexican from the state of Zacatecas, a dollar an hour a raise if he would stay. Antonio now earns $4.50 an hour doing “whatever we need” in the furniture factory, Perez said. But Antonio insists that he must go. “I cannot qualify,” he says, “and if I stay, they will punish me. I don’t want to get into trouble.”

If any more workers leave, David Perez says, the company may have trouble filling orders for its inexpensive bedroom furniture, and could lose even more business to competitors in Brazil, Central America and Taiwan.

Seeking Other Workers

The Perezes said they have asked the state Employment Development Department for workers, but haven’t heard back. In the meantime, they have hired two undocumented workers on a short-term basis, but David Perez said he realizes he must begin complying with the law or risk heavy fines.

Other employers said they too have asked the employment office to send them workers, but most said they are still waiting for their first applicants.

Suzanne Schroeder, a spokeswoman for the Employment Development Department in Sacramento, said job openings filed with Orange County’s five offices are up slightly but not necessarily because of the new law. “These (figures) fluctuate from month to month,” Schroeder said, but some employees in the agency’s 200 offices statewide are “getting a feeling that the law is making a difference” in the number of job openings filed.

House Cleaners Wanted

Qualified workers have not been beating a path to the doors of the National Domestic Agency in Huntington Beach either, says company owner Lupe McKnight.

“If they’re out there, I want them,” said McKnight, a Baja California native who was once a maid herself. “I have the jobs, but I don’t have anybody available to supply.”

Most of the women applying for work do not have papers, McKnight said, and neither she nor most of her clients are willing to take the risk. But, in contrast to companies that have been hurt by the labor shortage, McKnight said her business is making more money than ever.

“Whatever I have, I can charge more,” said McKnight, who receives a commission equivalent to 75% of the referral’s first month’s salary. “And the legal Spanish-speaking maids realize they’re a valuable commodity. Women who used to get $125 a week, now they’ll get anywhere from $150 to $250. . . . They won’t work for less. . . . If you want legal aliens, I’ll get them, but be ready to pay the price.”

McKnight said the change “is good for the Spanish people. We’re finally getting the wages we deserve.”

Restaurant Workers

Some restaurant workers also are cashing in on their increased value. At Maxwell’s, a popular spot at the foot of the Huntington Beach pier, day manager Skip Wimmer said kitchen workers are asking for $4.50 to $5.50 an hour, about a dollar more than they worked for a few months ago. And they are getting it.

“The laborers are tougher to come by,” Wimmer said. “You’re more or less at their mercy. . . . This may have been long overdue--maybe we’ve been getting away with something in the industry all along, and it was time to increase that wage.”

Perhaps the clearest evidence so far of legal or soon-to-be legal aliens’ increased bargaining power in Orange County was the recent dry-wallers’ strike. About 500 dry-wallers in Orange, Riverside and San Diego counties--many of them immigrants applying for amnesty--have joined the strike and are demanding higher wages, according to the group’s leader, Jose Valadez. Current Orange County wages range from 5 to 7 1/2 cents per square foot for hanging heavy dry-wall sheets, and the strikers want about a 1-cent increase.

“What we’re seeing, and I think everybody else is seeing,” said Bordier’s Nursery field manager John Walden, “is that the illegals who have been here awhile, who have experience, they have more to bargain with. And more power to them.”