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 ...
As a (former) winemaker and vineyard type, there are always alternatives - but it will cause a big labor squeeze in the short term. Winegrape harvest isn't for nearly two months so time to start figuring it out. Mechanical harvesting isn't always an option, depends on your row configuration and such.
As for raising the price, there are price elasticity issues. Not a big deal on the super premiums but huge at the lower end.
Cheers.
There is no shortage of citizen-workers and legal resident workers anywhere in the U.S.; only shortages of workers willing to work for less than what some employers are willing to pay.
Yeah, he's basically admitted a quarter century of illegal business practices. The guy should be held to account for his crimes.
All the patriots now need to srcream about unemployed, kids, even prisoners getting out there and getting the work done. A real governor would do that, too.
Because they get paid more to sit on their butts and complain to the MSM about their so-called life all day.
ping
Picking grapes is actually great fun and not especially difficult. That said, there isn't a big pool of casual labor in the immediate area apart from the aforementioned.
Quite frankly, I don't want to see this governor or any other government official involved in a purely business matter. They'll figure out a way to screw it up even more. The market works quite well if you let it.
"only shortages of workers willing to work for less than what some employers are willing to pay."
Try only shortagees of workers willing to work for less than welfare pays!
I know, that's why I said it. I'm a smart a$$.
The South had similar problems after the Civil War.
When you add up the benefits welfare pays more than $100/day, at least in California and they can sit on their backsides to get it.
30 years ago I knew a construction superintendant that penciled it out and could make over $30k/year on welfare. He transfered his home, boat, dunebuggy, and all his assets to relatives and quit his good paying job and went on welfare. Of course being a skilled craftsman he made just as much working for cash on the side since he didn't have to work being on welfare and the welfare became added income.
No, as the "news" in the original thread points out; the wineries would have had enough workers if construction, even its lowest-skill tasks, and other trades did not offer higher salaries.
Slide those factors up the scale in all industries, especially those that more than others depend on domestic, as opposed to overseas, labor, and foreclose the ability to obtain cheaper illegal labor and you get greater investment in labor-saving technology, which results in job requirements for higher-skill levels of workers which supports higher salaries the business or industry was orginally competing with.
Continue an economy's addiction to cheap illegal labor and you get an economy that can grow with continued dependence on continued, cheap illegal labor; with a growing spread between an ever enlarging bottom and an ever greedier top - which the income data of the last six years reflect.
Its amazing how the Japanese economy pulled out of a ten-year, deflationary recession, avoided massive unemployment, continued to be a world export leader, did not see huge declines in wages and...........has very little immigration at all.
Yet, the economic mantra here attempts to portray "immigration" as almost Christlike in its salvatory attributes.
It's funny, but I'd bet this will hurt the big operations (who tend to rely on mechanical harvesting) less than the boutique guys who spent millions on the land, vines, equipment and "stuff" and don't pay the workers sheeeet.
I'll hate to see prices go up, but in truth most of small wineries products (with exceptions) are overpriced and you can get better everyday wine from the majors - assuming you know what you're looking for.
DEFINATLY!!!!!!!
I was just about to ask that very question.
Mm...a friend of mine has unpredictable seizures...some days, he's fine; some days, he's not. The seizures tend to screw him up for 12+ hours at a time (seizure lasts a few seconds, but the brain take a long time to "hard reset.") He takes more pills per day than I hope to in a year and they help, but they can't fix all the seizures. He wants to work, but no job will take him because he can't predict his hours. Plus, most non-government insurance won't pay for the drugs that he needs. So he's stuck on welfare, miserable.
What should be done with him?
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