Locke Will Study Housing Legislation Protesting Migrant Workers Ask Governor To Veto Measure

Gov. Gary Locke told protesting migrant workers Wednesday that he will take an especially hard look at a bill allowing growers to build temporary worker housing exempt from state building codes.

Locke met briefly with about 50 members of the United Farm Workers, who asked him to veto the measure on grounds migrant workers deserve better. The workers had spent the previous night “serenading” the governor within earshot of the mansion followed by an uncomfortable pre-dawn slumber on the Capitol steps.

The Democrat’s top legislative aide, Marty Brown, said later the governor fully intended to “get everybody who was involved in this bill” to explain and justify its content before he considers whether to sign or veto the measure. He has until May 20 to decide.

Backers of the bill, SB5668, contend it would allow growers to build affordable temporary housing that would be far better than the squalid conditions endured by some workers now.

Sponsor Sen. Margarita Prentice, D-Seattle, said too many farm workers “are living along the riverbanks or in their cars.”

“My focus is the workers. I want to do something about the people who come here to pick the crop,” said Prentice, who was the first Hispanic woman in the Legislature.

But Guadalupe Gamboa, the state director of the UFW, said the union is angry that lawmakers want to impose “a standard that says ‘something is better than nothing,’ when the standard should be ‘give farm workers the same standard of housing as everybody else.’ There is no reason to accept that we should be second-class citizens with housing.”

He said the bill would allow growers to simply erect tents for workers, something growers say they would not do.

Gamboa said the real issue is poverty caused by low wages. “Some of our people make under $6,000 a year.” With better wages, workers could afford rents on the open market rather than sleeping in their cars or depending on growers for substandard housing, he added.

Under the disputed legislation, growers could construct pared-down housing structures to be used only during the summer. Though plumbing, kitchens, bathrooms, heating and insulation would be absent from these structures, farmers would be required to provide centralized kitchens, laundry, bathrooms and water.

So instead of paying $100 per square foot to build a structure, farmers would be paying about $22, said Timothy Nogler, managing director for the state Building Code Council, which helped develop the proposed codes.

Farmers would also continue getting sales tax exemptions on labor and materials used to build migrant housing.

“There is no fairy godmother who is going to wave a magic wand” and build worker housing, Prentice said. Growers will provide more housing, however, if the state makes it more affordable for them to do so, she said.

“The idea was that we needed to encourage growers to go into housing,” she said.