Guest worker program raises more red flags than solutions

Upon further review, we don't think a guest worker program to fingerprint and photograph all nontribal workers on the Yakama reservation and collect 50 cents for every hour they work is such a good idea after all.

Schaptakay Labor Works LLC has been licensed by the tribal council to develop and carry out a for-profit guest worker program on the 1.2 million-acre reservation.

While we originally thought it was worth exploring, follow-up reports would indicate that the program falls well short of being a bona fide immigration reform effort. A guest worker program is only one part of needed immigration reform and this local proposal smacks of being more of an employer shakedown than a solution for workforce shortages.

The fee would raise about $12.6 million a year for the company, and we're not sure what's in it for the employers, except for a significant cost of doing business. A firm with 25 full-time nontribal employees, working 40-hour weeks, would pay $26,000 at 50 cents per hour for 52 weeks.

Schaptakay co-owners Hal Kent and Wendell Hannigan said their plan is to assure a legal and stable work force on the reservation while ridding it of much crime. But we're not sure how tracking workers in the company's database would do that. And the phrase "all nontribal workers" would involve more than just immigrant labor, legal or illegal, working in the fields and packing houses. It seems it would extend to the likes of teenagers working at McDonald's, too.

Mike Gempler, executive director of the Washington Growers League, said: "When I was first approached by Schaptakay, I thought it was to help solve a labor problem and provide workers. But that doesn't appear to be what this is about at all. All of a sudden this has turned into a tax issue rather than a guest worker program."

Gempler also raises a legitimate concern when he questions what services employers would receive in return for the fee, adding that guest worker programs usually provide employers with workers.

It's a legitimate concern. It's at best unclear what the fee is for or what the company would do with the information it gathers.

We're reminded of another fee scheme. The Seattle City Council decided that beginning in January shoppers must pay 20 cents for each plastic or paper bag they use at grocery, drug and convenience stores in the city. The stores will keep 5 cents from each bag to cover costs associated with administering the fee. Small stores that gross less than $1 million a year would keep the entire 20-cent fee.

The city would use $1.5 million of the expected $10 million in annual bag-fee revenue to provide at least one reusable bag to each household. The idea is to discourage paper and plastic by slapping a tax on them (rather than an outright ban). What we see happening is establishment, and future growth, of a new bureaucracy that really doesn't solve the problem -- but generates millions in tax revenue for the city.

We don't see how a 50-cent per hour fee on the reservation is going to solve the immigration and illegal work force problems, either. And there's no clear information available on who would get the $12.6 million it would generate.

The owners of the new Yakama business say the basic issue is tribal sovereignty, which no one can dispute when it embraces tribal members on tribal lands. The historical jurisdiction problem on the Yakama Reservation is the fact that land within the exterior boundaries is a checkerboard of tribal and nontribal ownership.

It's not clear if the tribe could require reservation businesses situated on nontribal land to register their workers. U.S. Assistant Attorney Tom Rice in Spokane told our reporter that he wouldn't comment on the matter unless the tribal government attempted such a move.

We would suggest he study the jurisdiction parameters of this proposal and be ready to comment in detail.

The tribe has the authority to track and document workers on its reservation without any federal involvement so long as it's not bringing workers in from other countries, according to federal Customs and Immigration Services spokeswoman Sharon Rummery in San Francisco.

The question becomes: Can the tribe charge a fee on nontribal members on nontribal land?

Immigration, including guest worker programs, is a federal responsibility that extends beyond the reservation boundaries. Let the feds and Congress deal with guest worker programs, and all the other elements of immigration reform.

* Members of the Yakima Herald-Republic editorial board are Michael Shepard, Sarah Jenkins, Bill Lee and Karen Troianello.

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