Will Migrant Workers be Heading Home?

by Tom Reyes

There are changes on the horizon, and which ever way these changes go we might be in store for a bit of havoc.

What are these changes all about? Well, to begin, it greatly involves the border separating the United States and Mexico.

Mexico's new president, Vicente Fox, met last week with President George W. Bush and a major topic discussed was the relaxing of border rules on the U.S. side in order to allow easier entry for Mexican workers coming north to work on U.S. farms.

Both sides acknowledge more than 10 million Mexican workers are in the U.S. illegally. An action as presented could result in the dropping of the letters "il" from the word, thus many of these "illegals" could come out of hiding and the pressure at the border could ultimately subside.

But there is another matter which President Fox presented which could have a serious impact on Landscape contractors, or rather on independant gardening services.

President Fox stated it was his dream that during his six-year term in office he would work to improve wage and living conditions in Mexico with the goal of "bringing back" workers who had fled to the United States in search of higher wages.

Many of these workers left their families behind and send back a high percentage of wages to improve their lives.

But what would happen in the U.S. if President Fox succeeded in making a dream a reality? Would these workers return to Mexico? And what would happen to the many gardening services which rely on the Mexican worker to get the job done?

Felipe M. owns a gardening service in Orange County, California. "If I lost what everybody calls our "cheap labor," I would have to go out of business," he stated. " I could not afford to pay minimum wages or higher, social security and disability and the quarterly payments to the Internal Revenue Service and the state and still charge $60 to $75 per house. Who is going to pay the accountant? I would need to double my price...no, triple in order to provide the same job."

Jorge G. is a gardening service worker who hails from a small village in southern Mexico. "I have been away from my family for four years," he said, "in that time I have sent enough money for my wife to pay for our house and have food and new clothes for our children."

Jorge said "Yes, if things were better there I would not hesitate to get back. I would get back pronto."

Yes, gardening services would suffer, but so would other businesses. The Mexican workers, the so-called "cheap labor," Would also disappear from construction sites, where they are known to grab a shovel and dig the most important ditches. Having to pay more for the laborers could result in higher home prices and, of course, higher taxes. LCM