unfortunately, Jim, the traitors are also within - California republican growers called in March for more immigrants. The amnesty laborers of the 90’s are aging, their children, 12 million strong, aren’t becoming farm workers but welfare recipients (surprise), or cash laborers (or both). Chuck Herrin and some idiots at the Western Growers Assn. think the solution is more illegals (and their families), when the solution should always have been a part-time imported force that goes home, where their wages stretch further, when the picking is done, ala Canada. The “shortage” of ag laborers has led to a $1 increase in hourly wage. Seems to me that’s a good thing because it will attract non-Mixtec workers, pretty much absent in the fields nowadays by design.
http://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/30/us/california-farmers-short-of-labor-and-patience.html?_r=3
It’s long past time to cut off the benefits.