On July 15, more than 180 people departed from Colima, Mexico, bound for Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta farms for six months of work.

The terms of their journey were so special – they were going legally – that Colima's state government threw a party to celebrate. The workers carried H-2A farm labor visas, sponsored by a Delta employer who promised wages of $100 a day, 40 hours of work a week, free housing and low-cost meals.

After a month, some workers said, it proved too good to be true.

The housing was filthy, and meals were mostly beans. The workers had fronted $600 to cover visas and travel costs, yet many were earning little or nothing because there wasn't enough work.

As the U.S.-Mexico border tightens and immigration enforcement increases, the Bush administration is expected to announce reforms to make it easier for businesses to import H-2A workers.

Labor advocates and some prominent industry representatives agree, however, that neither agribusiness nor government officials are ready to manage an expansion that could make California the country's biggest importer of legal guest workers.

California produces more food than any other state, and requires half a million farmworkers at peak hiring. With many illegal immigrants now filling those jobs – up to 70 percent, the industry estimates – employers have seen little need to resort to the H-2A program.

This year, however, California employers showed more interest in the decades-old program, requesting about 4,000 H-2A workers. That's up from 2,500 in 2006, when 59,000 H-2A workers were approved for jobs nationwide.

As numbers rise, labor advocates caution that wherever the H-2A program has been used, they have found cases of mismanagement and abuse and workers rarely briefed on rights or how to exercise them.

"There's effectively no oversight once H-2A workers enter the country. These guys are stuck out in the boonies, and nobody cares about them," said Mark Schacht, deputy director of the California Rural Legal Assistance Foundation.

The foundation and the separate California Rural Legal Assistance Inc. filed a lawsuit Aug. 21 on behalf of two dozen Colima workers who say the Salvador Gonzalez Farm Labor Contractor company violated its contract with them.

Changes in the works

The H-2A program is designed to fill domestic labor shortages on farms. State employment agencies certify an employer tried to hire U.S. workers before the U.S. Labor Department clears the way for H-2A workers to come in for up to 10 months.

To ensure U.S. workers' wages are not depressed, H-2A workers in California must be paid at least $9.72 an hour. Their employer must provide free housing that has passed state inspection and offer meals that cost workers no more than $9.52 a day.

H-2A workers are strictly tied to their visa sponsor, barred from working for anyone else. Advocates say the rule indentures them and makes them likely to put up with violations of contracts.

Employers say H-2A rules include safeguards. Before workers return home, for example, employers must pay them three-quarters of what pay was promised during a contract, even if the laborers were not given work the entire time.

By the year's end, the Bush administration will announce its changes to the H-2A program. They could include allowing employers to give workers housing vouchers instead of supplying them with quarters, lowering wages and reducing requirements to prove employers tried to hire U.S. workers.

Jack King, national affairs manager of the California Farm Bureau, said employers want to use the H-2A program, but many businesses are ill-prepared to manage large influxes now.

"We're pretty new to this," he said.

King said the industry, joined by labor unions, would rather see Congress pass AgJOBS, a proposal that would allow undocumented farmworkers to come forward and earn legal status if they stay in farm work for three to five more years.

King said employers could use that time to build worker housing and learn to manage the H-2A program.

Call The Bee's Susan Ferriss, (916) 321-1267.