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Hannon: Laborers need more Legislator may seek aid for farm housing By PETER WONG SALEM -- State Sen. Lenn Hannon says state government ought to do more to improve living and working conditions for Oregon's farm laborers. After the Legislature's joint budget panel heard Friday from officials of seven state agencies, a briefing that the Ashland Republican requested, he said he's looking at the possibility of issuing state bonds to enable owners to build or improve farm labor camps. "I think if you gave proper incentives for the owners of these camps to build or replace some of their housing and build it to a minimum standard, they would go a long way toward solving the housing problems of farm workers," he said. Hannon said he may offer a specific proposal after he talks with Bob Repine, the former state representative from Grants Pass who now heads the state Department of Housing and Community Services. According to the Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OR-OSHA), the state has 289 registered farm labor camps, 27 of them in Jackson County. Hannon also said the agencies need to work together to ensure that farm workers are protected but farmers are not frustrated with conflicting requirements about living and working conditions. He said it is not enough for the agencies to uncover violations. "Who is working with the farming community -- the people who live there and the owners of camps -- to get them to work together and build a system that is good for all?" he asked. "There is no coordination. Each agency says it has a role and responsibility, but the right hand doesn't know what the left is doing. Agencies are not going to come up here and tell us things are not working -- they will say things are going fine." OR-OSHA, which is part of the Department of Consumer and Business Services, registers and inspects farm labor camps and monitors field sanitation and safety. The Bureau of Labor and Industries enforces minimum-wage and child-labor laws, and licenses farm-labor contractors. Among other agencies with responsibilities for farm laborers and their families are the Agriculture, Education, Employment, and Housing and Community Services departments, and the Health Division of the Human Resources Department. "We have a high level of cooperation," said Labor Commissioner Jack Roberts. "We do work together." Roberts has not asked for more staff but said the addition of an investigator probably would turn up more violators of wage and labor laws. OR-OSHA, which has asked for more field staff positions for general purposes, stepped up inspections of farm labor camps from 42 in 1997 to 154 last year. "I don't think we have adequately addressed the problems," said OR-OSHA Administrator Peter DeLuca. "Right now we're doing an adequate job." Friday's discussion was prompted by a series of stories in The Oregonian newspaper last year and a visit by several senators to farm labor housing last fall. "We found the housing to be pretty bad," said Sen. Cliff Trow, D-Corvallis. "A lot of people are living in bad facilities. They're better than none at all, but still bad." Several members of the budget committee got into a tussle about the barriers that exist to reporting complaints or violations. The 1997 Legislature passed a bill, which the Oregon Farm Bureau Federation requested, that would have overridden an Oregon Court of Appeals decision protecting farm workers from being fired after they expressed concern about working conditions. Gov. John Kitzhaber vetoed the bill. "When you have the most vulnerable of people out there who are living in substandard conditions and afraid to say anything, our role here is to make sure we fund programs at a level so that does not happen," said Rep. Randy Leonard, D-Portland. "If somebody retaliates, we should come down like a ton of bricks on whoever does it." Mail Tribune Copyright � The Mail Tribune 1999, Medford, Oregon USA