Posted on 03/21/2006 9:16:45 AM PST by BurbankKarl
YAKIMA — Some farmers in Eastern Washington are looking to hire as many as 1,000 seasonal farmworkers from Mexico under a federal guest-worker program, as concerns about a labor shortage this season heighten.
Last year, a severe drought in the Yakima Valley, as well as reduced crop size, enabled growers to avert a serious labor shortage, by most accounts.
Still, two employers were able to justify hiring 90 workers from Thailand to harvest apples under the federal H-2A program, which allows farmers to bring in foreign workers if they can prove a labor shortage exists.
This year's unprecedented recruiting comes at a time of urgency for both farmers and farmworkers, as border tensions and concerns about national security threaten to paralyze Congress on far-reaching changes to immigration law.
"There are about a half-dozen farms that are very scared. We need lots of people. It really is different this year," said Mike Gempler, executive director of the Yakima-based Washington Growers League, which represents agricultural employers in labor matters.
While 1,000 of about 31,000 seasonal agricultural workers in the state is a relatively small number, it's the largest since a few Yakima Valley growers two years ago turned to the H-2A program.
The growers went through a California labor contractor, Global Horizons, which lost its business license over wage and tax violations and is not recruiting in the state this season.
The company is appealing the revocation of its license.
In turning to H-2A again this year, growers are using the services of the Northwest Growers Association, a nonprofit labor-contracting firm that is an affiliate of the Growers League.
Gempler said recruiting will take place exclusively in Mexico.
Local workers will have the first shot at farmworker jobs before Mexicans are brought over under H-2A, but employers are skeptical the supply will be adequate.
Already, signs of a labor shortage this season are appearing, with some growers in the Naches area advertising for pruners.
The H-2A program is designed to import foreign workers temporarily when U.S. employees can't be found.
More common in states such as North Carolina, Georgia and Florida, H-2A requires workers to stay with one employer for what is usually a 10-month contract. The employer must provide room and board and pay $9.03 an hour.
Gempler said there is adequate temporary housing for an additional 1,000 workers in the Yakima Valley.
Employers as well as farmworkers are critical of the H-2A program. It can be costly, and workers don't always arrive when they are most needed.
That tempts them to leave the farm to look for work, which makes them subject to deportation.
What needs to be picked ?
This is really wierd, in my opinion. The summer I turned 16, I went to Oregon, stayed with my uncle, and worked picking cherries for local farmers. Every person picking was either a high school kid or another local resident.
This was in 1962. The pay was better than I was getting in my home town, the weather was great, and I met some really cute girls during picking season.
Where are the teenagers? Where are their parents? My father cut off all allowances when I turned 16, and I had to pay the extra insurance on the car, buy my own gas, purchase my own clothes, and more, from that time on. I learned to work.
My wife says she tasseled corn during that season when she lived in Illinois, starting at age 14.
Let's put our teenagers to work.
bump
Teenage unemployment is running about 20%.
There are lot of illegal voters in Washington, have them do the work.
Apples and pears, mostly, though there's also a fair amount of cherries, peaches, and apricots.
Also, before picking there's thinning; and once the trees are dormant there's pruning.
The true facts of the matter are that orchard work is one of those jobs that it's hard to find Americans to do. It's hard, physical labor, and the growers are almost always operating on thin financial margins so they're hard-pressed to pay enough to attract Americans. Individual growers can still make a living, because they can pay illegals a lot less to get their crops in.
As an interesting side note, my observation is that there's a direct correlation between the influx of illegals and the rise of LBJ's "Great Society."
When I was a kid growing up in WA, every fall up to about 3rd Grade we'd get an influx of "Kids With Strange Seasonal Names" -- Rex, Virgil, Ivan, and such -- who would be there from September through about November, then we'd never see them again. Their parents were migrant workers, usually from the south.
When I got into 4th grade (1971), there were no more "strange seasonal names," and we began seeing more and more Mexicans in town.
The advent of Great Society social programs is the only explanation I can find for this rapid change.
I got a better idea, just pay more until the labor you need comes around. It's called supply and demand.
Why weren't NOLA jobless relocated to crop areas?
Look back to your cherry-picking days, and ask yourself what's different.
You got up early enough so that you could start picking when the sun rose (~0500), and you worked all day in the hot, hot heat, climbing around in those sticky trees, grabbing cherries. Hard work, but if you wanted money that's what you did. Now, however, it's lots easier for kids to get money in other ways, especially from mom and dad.
Even now, in orchard towns, you'll find local some kids out in the orchards, but it's not nearly so prevalent as it was -- there's significant competition from illegals who do that for a living, for less -- an orchardist friend of mine says they can pick about 3x faster, with less fruit damage, than a high school kid; and they're far more reliable about showing up for work.
Even the illegals are refusing to work in the orchards because they can find easier, better paying work in construction.
Actually, you're dead wrong. For most of the growers up there, it would be called "Going Out Of Business." You clearly need to study up on the facts of the matter.
Well, there may be a few today who would would produce, but very few.
There are no HD TVs or Nordstroms in the field.
Why tolerate the hot, dusty, smelly orchard when you know your parents are buying you a new Porsche for graduation anyway?
Why pick a job when you only get paid for what you produce instead of standing around and chatting with your friends?
I live in southeastern WA and the story is for real. Many growers are extremely apprehensive.
Unsurprising. Orchard work is hard.
In 1962, there was a ton of teenagers called the baby boom.
That is not normal. What is normal is the current labor market and the shortage of people willing to do these jobs.
MineralMan wrote: "...Let's put our teenagers to work."
They might have to join the Cesar Chavez United Farm Workers union.
"You got up early enough so that you could start picking when the sun rose (~0500), and you worked all day in the hot, hot heat, climbing around in those sticky trees, grabbing cherries. Hard work, but if you wanted money that's what you did. Now, however, it's lots easier for kids to get money in other ways, especially from mom and dad. "
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.