Here & Now; 842

Presentation of here and now is made possible in part by the Animal Dentistry and Oral Surgery Specialists of Milwaukee and Doshkosh, a veterinary team working with pet owners and family veterinarians throughout Wisconsin, providing care for oral disease and dental problems of small companion animals. Additional support for here and now is provided by the LE Phillips Family Foundation. Tonight on here and now, Immigration Policy in Arizona is stirring up a state by

state debate. We'll see where it leads in Wisconsin and are we in an economic recovery yet? What will the signs of recovery be in the Badger State and where will the jobs be? We'll ask a top economist those questions and later an update on wolves, carp, and deer, oh my. But first, Arizona's tough new law cracking down on illegal immigrants gets the nation and Wisconsin talking about immigration reform. In a few minutes we'll hear from a Buffalo County dairy farmer about why he needs Mexican labor to stay in business. But first, Green Bay Democrat Senator Dave Hansen authored a bill this past legislative session that went nowhere, much like some might say immigration reform on the national front. But Hansen's bill signed on to by several lawmakers would have required any company that has hired illegal immigrants to be ineligible for any income or property tax exemption, enter into any contract with state or local government for providing construction work or supplying equipment, and the

measure would have made such employers ineligible for grants or loans from local government. We sat down with Senator Hansen at his capital office. What was your motivation in authoring this bill? My motivation is that most of the time when we have the discussion on the immigrants, it's all about the employee. It's never been about the employer. But if you really look at it, if the employer wasn't getting all these tax breaks from local and state government, maybe they wouldn't be hiring the illegals. And maybe the problem wouldn't be as large as it was. And the saddest thing went through all this all, two years ago we had a vote and a bipartisan where we passed it in the state senate. In committee this time it passed three to two, the two Republicans voted against it. And WMC came out against it and defense the large manufacturing and large farmers. So what group wanted you to author this bill? We as a political party wanted to say that we want to address this problem. But let's address it in a different perspective than what Arizona is doing. Let's address it from the way that

the employers are doing their hiring. What about labor unions? Were they behind this? I had no discussion with labor unions. This was more among our political people in our party that decided in the state senate that we wanted to bring this forward. And we brought it forward two years ago. And it seems ever more apparent today that it is a topic worth discussing. And so when I brought it up on the floor for discussion, you know, and they objected to third reading, Senator Fitzgerald, I went, well, let's have the debate. Let's have the discussion. If you want to amend it, if you want to change it. But all we're saying is local and state government shouldn't be providing tax credits and tax incentives for people that knowingly repeat, knowingly are hiring illegal. Well, the business lobby worries about this. They worry that it'll push jobs out of Wisconsin because an employer might mistakenly hire someone that they thought was legally documented and turned out not to be. And now this raises the specter of fear among corporations. Well, two years ago when we were talking

about this and trying to pass this bill, we put the language in there that said if they make a good faith effort. So basically what we're trying to do is go after the people in an unscrupulous way that are knowingly hiring illegals and yet taking tax credits and breaks from state and local government. I don't think the tax bearer should be financing that kind of employment in my opinion. The dairy industry employs a lot of Mexican labor. In fact, there are statistics that suggest that 40% of dairy farmers say they would go out of business if they didn't have access to this labor. What about the impact of any such law even though your bill did not make it out this session? What about the impact of such a law on the dairy farmers in the state of Wisconsin? First of all, this should be being dealt with at the federal level and I believe the Bush administration did want to do it because cheap labor is showing up at their doors and they're increasing their profits.

That is a concern and the bills brought up if they wanted to have that debate in that discussion we should have had it. We should not have just totally out of hand had a rejection where if you objected a third reading on the last day of the state senate it effectively killed that bill and that was the concern. And you know the other side always talks about what we should do about illegal immigration and it's always about the employee and not the employer. And in this case we want to at least have this discussion where it's not all the fault of the young men and women or older men and women are coming from Mexico. It's the fact that people are hiring them. The bill itself uses the language illegal alien and one farmer that we talked to said that's just racist to even use that term and then there it is in bold print on senate bill 600 illegal alien. What's your response? My response is I've never been called a racist before. I've been able to work with everybody in my area and we have a very very diverse

community you know and if if we would have had the discussion on the bill and somebody wanted to amend it we're not we were in a mendable stage. It was just the beginning of this bill's discussion on the floor. It could have been changed. It could have been altered. We could have had this discussion but that didn't happen because senator Fitzgerald cut off the debate and if they're going to talk of immigration reform this is one topic that should at least be discussed not like what they're doing in Arizona. Let's do it and let's look at what's really causing the legal coming to the state work work and you can't fault them for that but we must put a system in place because it is driving way just on and there are unscrupulous people out there and they can still do it. I mean we're just not going to give them tax credits and tax breaks by this bill. This same farmer that we talked with said that this bill there was never any intention of actually passing this that it was simply to fuel political campaigns. Your response to that? Well you know I think that would be the Republican talking point because they

certainly have used illegal immigration against any Democrat that is running. They've always used that against campaigns you know against all of our candidates that were pro the illegals and not aliens but immigrants and that's been their talking point but why not have the discussion on the issue. I mean they can run it out there in a campaign they can criticize us and yet when we want to have the discussion in a state senate you know and last time two years we did pass it on the floor somebody didn't take it up but it was passed out of the state senate and at least we had a debate and discussion and remember it is a bipartisan bill there's Republican Senator and Republican Assembly on the bill and in last time I think there were six state senators that vote in the last session to say yes to this bill so it's bipartisan but to just reject it by objecting to it on the last day which effectively killed the discussion amazed me it really is because if we're going to have a discussion on immigration reform let's have this discussion. Senator Hanson thank you. Thank you. I spoke with Senator Hanson

earlier we asked Senator Scott Fitzgerald for a statement regarding his position on the Senate immigration proposal he said SB 600 puts the responsibility on Wisconsin employers to verify worker documentation rather than the state or federal government. Local employers aren't trained to recognize false documentation. This bill is just another example he says of an ill thought out bill rushed through in the last seconds of the legislative session. And one Buffalo County dairy farmer that we refer to gets angry over measures like the one in play in the legislature he employs Mexican workers to run his operation and says he couldn't survive without them. On the Rosenholm Wolf dairy farm in Buffalo County the owners employ eight workers from Mexico. John Rosenow says the farm would not survive without them. We can't as clear as can be there's always been a shortage of labor even when I was a kid there was a shortage of labor. John Rosenow milks about 500 cows a larger operation than his family's original dairy farm. And because of the trend toward larger

farms in Wisconsin hiring Mexican labor is a growing trend. State figures show nearly a third of the workers on Wisconsin dairy farms about 4200 are Latino. The state's Secretary of Agriculture acknowledges the need. It isn't that one morning they woke up and suddenly suddenly decided that it would be better to have Mexican labor. They went there because that was the only choice left in most cases. A recent academic survey found that 40 percent of Wisconsin dairy farms would go out of business without hires from south of the border. We had the Mexican employees because we need the labor. We milk around the clock. We just could not find enough local labor to do the job for us. Because here the shifts are good. Discussion there. You have a whole day off every week. These are the jobs that Americans did 25-30 years ago but for wages that allow them to support their families. Job competition is just one reason

David Gorek leads a group headquartered in his LaValle home called the Midwest Coalition to Reduce Immigration. His true aim is to send every illegal immigrant packing. One of my favorite five letter words, legal. That's all we're saying. Gorek blames the government for failing to impose law and order. And you have to enforce the laws. If you don't enforce the laws all you do is breed contempt for all law. For his part John Rosano in no way considers himself exempt from immigration laws. Rosano stays awake nights worrying his employees are not legal and that the INS will show up. The biggest fear is that the documents that I'm receiving may not be real. If they're not real that I will be uh checked by immigration natural relations service or Homeland Security now and I lose my employees. Rosano says by law he's not expected to be a document expert and all his Mexican employees have provided true looking

green cards or social security numbers or drivers licenses. He is also by law not allowed to deny employment based on color of skin or assumptions that if the applicant is Mexican he must be illegal. In addition to his dairy operation John Rosano also runs a compost business. He joins us now from Oh Claire and thanks a lot for doing so. Thank you. Well what is your reaction to the now dead Senate Bill 600 that would have penalized employers for hiring in its language illegal aliens? Well when I hear the word illegal aliens if it kind of irritates me it's similar to using the N word. These are people undocumented people not illegal aliens and that bothers me but the bill itself and legislators have a real tough job. They have to create legislation that is going to last over a long period of time and

something like this only stirs up racial hatred and things like that and it's just something we do not need in Wisconsin. What about the concerns though on the part of the author who expressed that undocumented immigrant labor is taking jobs and driving down wages for Wisconsin-born workers? Our experience is that I have a dairy farm and not a lot of people want to work on dairy farms anymore. It used to be that people did want to do that. Over the last six seven years I probably had 150 people apply for jobs at my farm and three have been from the United States. Now the author of the bill says that employers under this bill would only be penalized if they knowingly hired undocumented or falsely documented workers. Wouldn't that protect someone like yourself and others acting in good faith? I don't know how the law would define unknowingly. What I do when I hire somebody is I require documentation.

They give me documentation and according to my attorney I need to look at it. And if I'm look at it as a reasonable person and it looks like a reasonable document I'm to accept it. If I don't accept it and take steps to not hire the person and I make a mistake then I'm liable for discrimination suit by the Office of Special Counselor's Department of Justice. When we visit you on your farm you express that your biggest fear is that you will lose your workers in a homeland security or immigration raid. Is it still? Yes. All the factors that we have to deal with that's one factor we cannot control. And I'm hoping that the documents that I received from my employees are all real and on the up and up but I don't know. And if I see it would come in and arbitrarily check my farm rather than somebody else or whatever and find out that my employees documents are not real and they would deport them. I am basically out of business.

Describe that how important these Mexican workers are to Wisconsin dairy farms as a whole. I'm a recent study and this is like two years old and it probably means more now there's like 40% of the dairy farm workers in Wisconsin are foreign born. And in the whole country it's 40% of all the dairy industry including people working in cheese factories and so forth. So if you take that equation out of the dairy industry we're really going to be in a world of hurt. What do you want to see happen with any immigration reform specific to your needs and the needs of other dairymen? I think what legislators need to recognize is that there is a crying need for the people that are working on our farms and working on our factories and working in our hotels that these jobs are unattractive to Americans. So somehow they need to recognize that first and then address that and try to make it so that those of us that are

trying to make an honest living out here can be assured that what we're doing is the correct and the people that are working for us are protected from arbitrary or let's say vigilante type things by people that are driven on a race basis and also they have rights our employees should have rights and right now the way the law stands if they are undocumented they don't have the rights that a normal American has and in some cases that's important we try to make sure that on our farm that we treat them right. That need is still out there even in kind of the perhaps tail end of this recessionary period the need for these immigrant workers. I and other farmers thought that when we went into this recession and it was pretty deep in effect that a lot a lot of people

and a lot of people are unemployed that we would get a lot of people applying for jobs. I've talked to people in Minnesota I've talked to people in Wisconsin I've talked to people in Iowa and we have had no uptick on applications we've had people put an ad in the paper to see if there was people out there that wanted to work on dairy farms and had absolutely no response. How would you grade the federal government and our own US representatives and senators and Wisconsin on their responsiveness to this issue and your need? I was in Washington DC about a month ago on this issue and visited with all our congressman and congresswoman in Wisconsin on the issue and we found good reception from our senators. Representative Ron Kind was very supportive and in congressman Ryan sat and met with us. I and Senator Kate are representative Ryan representative Kagan all sat down with us and I think

they understand the issue. They're a little bit concerned or very concerned about the politics of the issue. Yes I am sure that's accurate. John Rosino thanks very much for joining us. Thank you. Farmers like John Rosino who employ immigrant workers would like the federal government to allow many more visas than the 65,000 currently offered. That number compares to the 12 to 15 million current undocumented workers in the US. He'd also like to see laws that allow an easier path to citizenship. We turn now to some other items making headlines. It was a big week for wildlife news in Wisconsin starting with the development in Wisconsin's ongoing battle to keep Asian carp from invading Lake Michigan waters. On Monday the US Supreme Court decided not to cast their line into these legal waters. The high court rejected Michigan's request to block the flow of shipping and sanitary discharge waters from Chicago into Lake Michigan. Also this week the DNR board approved changes that will allow hunters to take bucks in five additional zones around the

state. The board also lifted restrictions on antlerless hunting in several Wisconsin zones. And finally the DNR announced that Wisconsin has joined Minnesota in asking the US Fish and Wildlife Service to remove the gray wolf from the federal endangered species list. The wolf has bounced on and off that list in the past five years. Animal rights advocates prefer to see the wolf protected. Those opposed want to be able to take steps to control wolves which kill livestock. Wisconsin's gray wolf population is currently at more than 700 animals twice the number set as a DNR management goal. Economic news now it's hard to determine if Wisconsin is in economic recovery or not. Unemployment is up in Milwaukee slightly down in other parts of the state like Racine. Then headlines this morning revealed tough times for an industrial leader of the pack in Wisconsin Harley Davidson. The motorcycle giant says it may throttle down its operation to the tune of 54 million dollars in operational cuts. This even as the US Commerce Department says increased consumer

spending has fueled a 3.2% economic growth during the first quarter of the year. So is Wisconsin recovering or still suffering in the throes of the recession. J Mueller is an economist with Wells Fargo capital management in Milwaukee and thanks a lot for joining us. My pleasure. So what's the word as to whether we are in fact in recovery? I think the United States as a whole is clearly in recovery. We've now had three quarters of GDP expansion beginning last summer and I think Wisconsin is probably coming along for the ride on that recovery. But I would say both at the national and the state level it is a fairly tepid recovery. A 3.2% growth rate is about average for the long term but given the house of veer the recession was we should be getting better than average growth right now. We should be seeing five six seven percent growth and we're not getting it. I think this is going to be a slow and painful recovery process. I think the worst is behind us but it's it's not going to feel

very much like a boom certainly not for some quarters to come. Well as in most things will economic recovery kind of come to Wisconsin later than other parts of the country? I think it's going to be a mixed bag. The areas of the economy that are doing better right now have to do with manufacturing which should be a plus for Wisconsin but the mix of manufacturing also matters quite a bit. The biggest source of demand right now is coming actually from overseas. So exports, U.S. exports have been a source of growth for the last couple of quarters and again in Wisconsin you've got some firms that benefit from that some which are in competition with that. So I think it's the jury is still out on that one. What kinds of manufacturing then would that represent in Wisconsin? Any number of companies from the very large well-known ones,

BCIRC theory and other heavy manufacturing managed to walk to small and mid-size businesses that are also heavily involved in exports so things that would not be household names. Now how meaningful is the boost in consumer spending because I do understand the consumer spending accounts for something like 70% of our economy? Right if you look at GDP about 70% of it is consumption historically and this most recent quarterly figure includes a pretty good bump upward in consumption spending of actually a little bit faster than the GDP number itself but we're still talking around 3.5% 3.6% in ordinary times and normal times we would say okay that's good enough but when you're digging out of a very very deep hole from the most severe recession we've had in decades that's a painfully slow recovery. We need to grow a lot faster than

that and at the moment it doesn't look like that's very promising. Well in fact the 3.2% was shy of expectations. What's holding what's holding us back? A couple of things as I mentioned the consumer even though the consumer is coming back we need them we need the consumer to do even better we need more momentum from the consumer and I think that's very hard to do when you still have nearly 10% unemployment and a lot of people who are credit constrained. The 15 years prior to the recession saw an explosion of consumer debt usage credit cards auto loans mortgage debt and of course we got to the point where there was just too much debt on the consumer balance sheet consumers are retrenching and that has restricted spending growth more than otherwise would. I think the other factor that's been a big drag is housing. Housing was a powerful engine of growth in the in the last two decades particularly in the 030405 period 06 and housing as everyone knows

is in a big slump we've probably hit bottom in housing but we're certainly not coming back with much bigger so I think those are the two biggest drags on the recovery at this time. Bumping along the bottom kind of now the Harley Davidson example suggests the consumers are spending maybe it's kind of pent up spending where you know you just have to go and replace something because you've been waiting for so long but we're not really buying big ticket toys. I think there's certainly been a shift from which might call more discretionary items to more necessities as the economy as the recovery matures I think you'll see more demand for some of the luxury goods the discretionary items but they always are more volatile and suffer the most in a downturn. Now I know you suggested that the growth that we're seeing isn't good enough to really pull us out of this really very entrenched recession but how sustained and at what level

must recovery be to make up for the losses of this recession if we ever can? Yes well typically it's taken about a year in some cases a little less in some cases a little more to recover the output lost during a recession. In the last couple of recoveries it's taken about a year and a half to recover the jobs lost in a recessionary period. At the rate we're growing right now it's going to take us a couple of years to recover our output and it could take us four or five years to recover the loss of employment. All that time the labor force will probably be growing almost certainly be growing and so even if we get all the jobs back the unemployment rate is still going to be higher than it was coming into the recession. So we are in recovery I just think it's it's going to be a disappointing recovery compared to say the early 80s when we had a very severe recession followed by a very robust period of growth. This is looking more like the

sort of jobless recoveries of the of the early 90s and the O203 period. Well none of that sounds really very good I guess it's better than continuing to sink deeper into recession or depression but if you are out there unemployed looking for a job where would you go first? I think it depends on your skill set there certainly continues to be job growth in some sectors and the sectors that have held up best in terms of employment in this in this cycle have been in education in in health care to some extent in leisure activities and the weakest areas have been in manufacturing and in construction financial services I think is was an area of tremendous of employment growth that's now going to be much harder so if you're out of work particularly if you were in construction or

manufacturing you might want to be looking at developing a new skill set and looking at some of these fields that have better longer term fundamentals. All right well Jane Mueller thanks very much. Thank you. More on the economy on next Friday's program here in now reporter our Hackett has been in Beloit working on a story about that city's alarming 18% unemployment rate. Next week the first of our two-part series on the hunt for jobs in Beloit. I'm Frederica Freiberg. Have a great weekend. Presentation of here and now is made possible in part by the animal dentistry and oral surgery

specialists of Milwaukee and Doshkosh a veterinary team working with pet owners and family veterinarians throughout Wisconsin providing care for oral disease and dental problems of small companion animals. Additional support for here and now is provided by the LE Phillips Family Foundation.