... and please don't squeeze the Charmin.
Posted on 06/30/2006 11:38:46 AM PDT by Tamar1973
Elias Torres will pick grapes this season for the first time in 25 years.
The vineyard manager usually sends his laborers to do the work. But in the last two months, more than half of his 60-person staff has disappeared, he said, as a result of federal immigration crackdowns. So Torres, a 57-year-old quadruple bypass survivor, will pluck and sweat alongside field workers -- and even the vineyard owners who hire him to bring them in.
"This is the worst labor shortage I've seen since I came here in 1961," said Torres, a native of Guanajuato, Mexico, who manages work teams for more than a half-dozen growers.
Sonoma and Napa county vineyard owners -- those who grow and sell grapes to wineries -- are panicking that a recent evaporation of field workers will leave them unable to pick all their grapes at harvest in mid-September. Many are already three weeks behind schedule on crucial tasks that lead up to harvesting.
"If it continues the way it is now, we're not going to have guys and there are going to be grapes left on the vine," said Gio Martorana, a vineyard owner in Healdsburg, who sells Zinfandel, Chardonnay and other grapes to Gallo, Sonoma Creek and Amphora wineries.
That means pain at the beginning of the wine chain, where growers' labor costs have leapt as much as 25 percent this season, in part, due to a shortage of workers.
Wineries selling varietals to glassy-eyed tourists and supermarket shoppers don't grow all the fruit for the wine they make. Rather, they buy tons of specially tended grapes from surrounding growers, often contracting with several each season.
(Excerpt) Read more at sanfrancisco.bizjournals.com ...
Grape growers squuezed...so they're wining again.
;^) (sorry)
I guess now they'll have to pay SS/unemployment taxes just like they would for a citizen employee. So sad.
... and please don't squeeze the Charmin.
Maybe we should breed apes or monkeys that are trained to pick crops, just to piss off the Spaniards. :) People often talk about jobs "that a trained monkey do." This might be the one job where that's literally true.
So, is Torres illegal? If so, why hasn't he been deported. Or if he's legal, why hasn't he and the dozen vinyards being fined for hiring illegals? I find it amazing ICE can't even be bothered to read the paper to get headline blazing tips for their next bust.
Exactly...if they become legal, you won't be able to "keep them down on the farm."
Excuse me if I don't believe that there aren't plenty of Americans willing and able to pick grapes for a while. Mayb all those displaced Katrina "victims" that Jesse and Al are whining about could be put to work in the vinyards. I know they're all dying to get off welfare and regain their pride of hard work and craftsmanship.
There is a glut and an ocean of wine and overpriced wine out there. (and I'm doing my share to reduce the ocean and glut)
Maybe they could move more wine if they cut the prices in half.
Wealthy, rich white people will have to pay more for their wine, in exchange for "worker rights" for Americans.
how about "The American working man makes inroads against wealthy grape growers"
Headway made against illegal labor practices.
If the media wasn't so anti-American all their stories would read differently.
The Spaniards? What does Spain have to do with this?
Joseph Ramazzotti, owner of Ramazzotti Vineyards & Wines in Geyserville, said nearly half of his laborers didn't return from their annual winter vacations in Mexico for the first time since they began working for him 10 to 15 years ago.
"It's those crazy Minutemen and now the National Guard," he said of increasing border patrols. Workers who made it back paid smugglers or "coyotes" roughly $3,000 to move them across the border, nearly double the amount paid to coyotes just a few months earlier.
What border?
Click to be +/- on this low volume (insert wit) wine ping list.Oenology news ping.
That was just a joke over the fact that they are currently considering (or perhaps have passed) legislation that will grant certain elevated rights to the Great Apes akin to rudimentary human rights. I assume my tongue-in-cheek proposal to breed and enslave thousands of grape picking chimps or monkeys would not sit well with the proponents of that legislation.
Illegal immigration is worth making a big megillah (gorilla) about!
If you can train a monkey to pick fruit without eating it, I'll hire you to teach obedience skills to my cat.
Here the illegals have their choice of jobs. Lawn maintenance, housekeeping, hotels, construction, etc. Why in the heck would they remain in the fields?
These guys crack me up.
He just admitted hiring illegals in the article. Looks like he needs fined.
http://www.aghinc.com/specpage.html
Like I said, it was tongue-in-cheek. Maybe they could breed monkeys that find the taste of grapes repulsive, but loooove the bananas they would get as a reward. :)
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