Latin Amer. leaders discuss labor plan with Calif. farmers

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2008/06/07/financial/f180923D21.DTL

Honduran president Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales and representatives from El Salvador and Guatemala met with California farmers Saturday to hash out a plan that will train laborers from those countries to work in the Western U.S.

The plan is set to start with about 300 workers from Mexico and Central America. It will operate under existing U.S. guest worker laws and take at least a year to implement, said Manuel Cunha Jr., president of the Nisei Farmers League, a group that represents hundreds of agriculture businesses in California, Washington, Oregon and Arizona.

Growers plan to work with Latin American countries to recruit and train workers to prune, pick and package produce and other goods in the nation's No. 1 farming state and beyond.

"Agriculture is very important in this country and to make it happen we need labor. We need skilled labor. We need legal labor," Cunha said after the summit, held in rural Fresno County.

The Latin American representatives said they hoped the partnership would provide an economic boon to all countries involved, and talked with large growers about moving some of their business from Asia to Central America.

Another issue was the working conditions for farmworkers in the U.S.

FULL story at link.