Glenda Anderson, Staff Reporter

AS MANY AS 4,000 Jamaican former farm workers, who were shunted off Florida's sugar cane fields following the mechanisation of the farms in the 1990s, are now being told to go home, or face further distress.

One-time recruiter Jamaica Central Labour Organisation, says the men - now frustrated and angry after many years of waiting and several failed lawsuits - should leave the shores of the United States and head back to Jamaica.

pending lawsuit

However, the men's lawyer, Gregory Schell, says they should make their own decision based on the facts. The lawyer advises that if the men leave the US, they will miss out on benefits they are rightly owed. He points to a pending lawsuit filed on their behalf against Florida's Osceola Farms, which will go before the courts later this year.

"They almost certainly will get nothing if they leave. They would forfeit that right (of compen-sation) if they return to Jamaica," says Schell.

The matter involves some 2,000 Jamaican men who worked as cane cutters in Florida between 1987 and 1993, and are eligible to join a lawsuit to recover an estimated US$10 million (J$720 million) in unpaid wages from their employer, Osceola Farms. As reported in an earlier Gleaner article, Schell believes the men may be eligible to claim up to US$30,000 (over J$2 million), including interest.

The group's troubles began in the early 1990s, following changes to a major agricultural provision. The USA's Immigration Reform and Control Act (1986) allowed persons to qualify by either being in the country continuously for five years, or having worked under the Special Agricultural Workers programme. This meant being employed for at least 90 days in fruit, sugar cane or vegetable.

By 1988, the US government allowed the men to apply and then issued them with temporary work-authorisation cards. This allowed some 10,000 farm workers to work and live in the US, travel back and forth to Jamaica (similar to the privileges of a green-card holder, with the only restriction being that they could not apply for their family members).

new regulations

They all got social security numbers and a driver's licence based on these cards.

In later years, there were new regulations to define 'fruit' and 'vegetable' under the programme, determining which of the crops could qualify a worker for amnesty. Sugar cane was not categorised as either fruit or vegetable.

This would have denied eligibility to many sugar workers. A lawsuit filed was lost, and at that point, the US government stopped renewing the cards. By the time the case was over in 1992, the US had a new president and agriculture department. In addition, machines had been brought in to replace manual labour in sugar cane field work.

social security money

"We believe there are about 2,000 to 4,000 of these men still in the US with those expired cards, hoping for something," Schell says.

He points out that men who got other jobs, and for whom social security was paid, would have accrued a great deal of social security money, as they would have been working since 1988. But, they cannot access those benefits until they get legal status.

"If the law changes, almost certainly, you would need to be in this country to qualify. So, even if they worked 20 years in this country and went to Jamaica for just a year, they would not qualify," Schell tells The Sunday Gleaner.

glenda.anderson@gleanerjm.com