Manos Pa’l Campo: labour for the coffee harvest

Every year, in the mountains, hands are needed to pick the coffee and they do not always turn up. This Act organises that season in two stages: first every available local worker is counted and placed, municipality by municipality; and only if after exhausting that there are still not enough people may the farmer seek permission to bring foreign workers — and never for more than half of what is missing. It serves you whether you are looking for harvest work or you own the farm and cannot find pickers.

It depends which side you are on. If you are looking for work, the Act defines you as a “local worker” if you are a citizen resident in Puerto Rico with United States citizenship, and it puts you first: the public policy is maximum job creation “with priority to the local worker.” If you are the farmer and want the foreign-labour-need certificate, the Act sets you three cumulative conditions in Article 2(d): that the agencies’ estimates show a real need; that you have exhausted all resources for placing local labour “in a reasonable time that does not affect the farmer’s operations” and that these were unsuccessful; and the cap of up to half the labour need estimated annually in your enterprise. An important scope caution: all of this Act’s foreign-labour machinery is tied to a single crop, “the tasks of the coffee harvest.” If your operation is something else, do not assume it covers you.

• For the local worker: be a citizen resident in Puerto Rico with United States citizenship.Verified against the official source
• For the farmer: that the agencies’ estimates demonstrate a real labour need in their enterprise.Verified against the official source
• For the farmer: having exhausted all resources for placing local labour, in a reasonable time that does not affect operations, without success.Verified against the official source
• For the farmer: not exceeding the cap of up to half (50%) of the labour need estimated annually in their enterprise.Verified against the official source
• That the tasks be of the coffee harvest: the Act ties the foreign-labour mechanism to that crop.Verified against the official source

Information pending verification.

1. 1

   Step 1: If you are looking for harvest work, you go first

   It is not a courtesy, it is in the public policy declaration of Article 2: the aim is “to achieve the maximum creation of jobs for the country with priority to the local worker and without excluding immigrant workers when local labour is insufficient.” And Article 2(b) repeats it as its own objective: “To guarantee the greatest possible participation of Puerto Rican workers in the tasks of the coffee harvest.” The Act defines you as a local worker if you are a citizen resident in Puerto Rico with United States citizenship. The one keeping the availability count is the Department of Labour and Human Resources, so that is where you sign up.

2. 2

   Step 2: The annual count, municipality by municipality

   Everything else hangs on a number two agencies must produce each year. Article 2(a) requires “establishing the agreements between the Department of Labour and Human Resources and the Department of Agriculture to estimate annually the demand for and availability by municipality of local labour for the coffee harvest.” Municipality by municipality, not one loose island-wide figure. And Article 4(a)(a) charges the Department of Labour with “creating and maintaining a statistics system that allows the greatest precision as to the availability of local labour available for the coffee harvest and that allows with equal precision determining the need for foreign labour.”

3. 3

   Step 3: The fifty per cent cap, with the Act’s own example

   This is the central rule and the Act takes the trouble to do the arithmetic for you, which is uncommon in a legal text. Article 2(d) orders the Department of Labour to authorise the foreign-labour-need certificates “in those agricultural enterprises that through the agencies’ estimates demonstrate a real need and after exhausting all resources for placing local labour, in a reasonable time that does not affect the farmer’s operations, have been unsuccessful, and with a cap of up to half the labour need estimated annually in that enterprise.” And it continues: “By way of example: if it is determined that after counting the number of available local workers there is still a local labour deficiency for next year’s coffee harvest of some 5,000 coffee pickers across the Island, entry may be authorised for up to 2,500 foreign workers that year, complying with ‘up to 50% of the need’.”

4. 4

   Step 4: If you are a farmer, you do not fill the papers alone

   The Act places on the agency the duty to help you with the paperwork, and it is worth claiming. Article 4(a)(b) requires the Department of Labour to “develop state plans in accordance with federal regulation to assist farmers in completing forms and applications for foreign workers when approval of this workforce is necessary.” And 4(a)(c) requires it to “orient and train agency officials, municipalities, and applicant farmers on the regulatory and legal implications of hiring foreign workers and ensure their faithful compliance.” On the Agriculture side, Article 4(b)(b) requires it to orient you “on the programmes and benefits available for hiring local labour and the programmes and conditions for using foreign labour.”

5. 5

   Step 5: The federal frame the Act names, and how far we go

   Article 2(f) says Puerto Rico will take part “in all programmes available under federal regulation, known as the ‘Inmigration Reform and Control Act of 1986’, to provide our farmers, in an orderly, controlled and legal manner, the alternatives of importing non-immigrant foreign agricultural workers, better known as H2A and/or ‘Guest Worker’.” We reproduce the programme name as the compilation prints it, misspelling included. We name H2A because the Act names it, but we did not read the federal statute or its regulations, so we publish none of their requirements, deadlines, wages or conditions. For that you must go to the federal source.

6. 6

   Step 6: What protects the local worker from displacement

   There is a concrete safeguard worth knowing. Article 4(b)(e) orders the Department of Agriculture to “ensure that the state resources available for promoting the local worker are not affected by the inclusion of foreign labour and that they are used in the most effective way.” That is, bringing in workers from abroad cannot serve as an excuse to cut what the State invests in placing workers from here. And Article 4(b)(f) requires Agriculture to sponsor activities promoting “the coffee picking as support to the thousands of farmers, their families and the mountain municipalities that will benefit from gathering 100% of their harvest, whether by Puerto Rican hands or with the help of foreign hands.”

7. 7

   Step 7: The ninety-day report

   If you want to know whether the Act is working, there is a document with a date. Article 5 requires the departments to submit to the Governor and the Legislative Assembly, “within the first ninety (90) days of each calendar year, a report on the activities developed in compliance with this Act, which must include, without limitation, the number of jobs created under the programme, the coffee harvest gathered and the impact, positive or negative, on Puerto Rico’s economy, particularly the Mountain Region.” One detail in the text we note without fixing: that article calls the agency “Department of Labour and Labour Relations,” while the rest of the Act uses “Department of Labour and Human Resources.” We quote it as printed.

At the Department of Labour and Human Resources, which keeps the local availability statistics system, authorises and approves the foreign-labour-need certificates, and has the duty to assist farmers with the forms and applications. The Department of Agriculture assists in the annual estimate and orients on the programmes and benefits for hiring local labour. Article 7 adds that the public policy “shall extend to other government instrumentalities and municipalities interested in developing related programmes,” so the municipality can also be a door. The Act publishes no form, office, address, telephone or deadline, and we do not invent them.

• Believing the farmer can bring in everyone missing: the cap is up to half the need estimated annually in their enterprise.
• Seeking the certificate without having looked for local workers: the Act requires having exhausted all resources for placing local labour, without success.
• Assuming it covers any harvest: the mechanism is written for the tasks of the coffee harvest.
• Filling the federal forms on your own: the Department of Labour has the duty to assist farmers in completing forms and applications.
• Thinking bringing in foreign workers cuts local-worker promotion: Agriculture must ensure the state resources for that are not affected.
• Looking in this Act for the H2A requirements: the Act names the federal programme but does not reproduce its requirements, and we do not invent them.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Departamento del Trabajo y Recursos Humanos (DTRH)

  Departamento del Trabajo

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov