So what is it that the average “migrant worker” tending the vineyards is making? Vs. what is it the vineyard owner is actually paying? What are the “benefits” that you also provide? Where do these workers stay and eat while working the vineyards? On my trips to napa i saw many workers but never in the towns. And i am now under the impression that these workers are mostly “undocumented”. Do the vineyard owners skirt the irs laws somehow or is it through actual legal hiring companies? Does company Acme say they can prune that acre for X, get paid by the owner, then pay out to documented and undocumented workers in cash, while keeping vineyard owners clear and free from straight out breaking the law? I can see where vineyard owners might be against large scale deportations.
Hey, now wait one minute there pal. Those are our precious snowflakes you are talking about here. ![[wow.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/7/7d450e9830889c8943b674446a21b7254cad657e.gif "wow"){kind=small}
How are you going to get these “inner city Americans” to the grape growing regions? Who is going to pay for this training process? Are you going to relocate them on a daily basis? Seasonally? Permanently? Which city are you talking about? Maybe you can manage to set up an urban grape harvesting force from San Fran/Oakland but I would guess that most other cities are a bit far to be a reasonable source of labor for wine-grape harvesting. Are you an actual racist or do you just play one on TV? If only the latter, let’s not attack the work mentalities of inner city Americans for not doing jobs that aren’t located near them and requires training that doesn’t exist. Most people want to work for their money, and, in fact, most people do work for their money. I know a ton of business owners who can’t find workers right now, skilled or unskilled, because the work force is depleted. Some of them are actually creating training programs to train unskilled workers to do skilled jobs, but these guys have the luxury of doing so because their businesses have been up and running for years (or generations). Otherwise the cost would be prohibitive.
Now, as to the idea that Americans don’t want to perform this type of manual labor, that is another conversation, but is hardly an inner city problem.
Kevin agreed but the labor shortages will even get more acute by a large factor. Not sure DA ag can absorb the problem without losing many current ag related businesses.
- There are actually quite large immigrant populations in Australia, though I am not sure how they factor into the grape harvest.
- The winemakers here have indicated that this is skilled work not best performed by college students and the similarly unknowledgeable.
You seem to have a skewed view. I don’t see how trying to get the non working Americans (unemployed) from the inner portion of large cities (a concentrated area) who could replace the 3-5 million possibly deported migrant workers (possibly allegedly illegals) makes me a racist. I do wonder though why you think it is too far and too difficult of a journey for these Americans to get to wine country but not too far or difficult if you are coming from another country, possibly by foot.
As others have pointed out, the reality is that most folks will not want to do the manual labor necessary in the vineyards - it just hasn’t happened here as it has in places like France. There’s no ‘romanticism’ here about waking up at 1 am to do night picks, getting scraped up or bitten by numerous bugs, sometimes in temperatures that will freeze your hands, bent over so your back is really worked. Again and again.
Could others be trained to do this? Of course there is the possibility of doing so - but with the culture in this country currently, I can’t see it happening.
As I said above, what I can see happening is more mechanization. As Kevin points out, this is not possible in certain vineyards - especially hillside ones - but it certainly can be and is currently being used for both large and small vineyards both domestically and around the world in ‘name the region’ . . .
Cheers
[political and offensive post removed by admin]
I agree with all of this, along with strong points made by those such as Evan and Randy among others.
Over the long run, unless there is a legal path for workers to come and go, this trend will likely impact the overall quality of wine in CA as well as price. It will lead to more planting that can be mechanically farmed and fewer that rely of hand work. The end result will likely be a reduction in high quality, moderately priced wines as fruit from existing hillside sites which cannot be easily machine farmed will go up in price to the point that it will only be found in bottles north of $50 or some such line.
While I don’t see this trend starting yet, but hypothetically at least, there must be a point at which Gringos will take a real interest in this sort of work. How many times does an idealistic young person get rejected for white collar jobs before they realize that getting their hands dirty might not be such a bad idea?
He just wants to say black. But is using the wonderful code word of “inner city”
Innovation has always been happening, I remember the guy in France that converted a snowmobile to work his steep, narrow hillsides. But I will keep going back to the crux of the question. We drink very cheaply in the US on the higher ends of wine(not the highest). It will always be what the market bears but looking at other markets there seems to be a lot of people still willing to spend ever more to get the best. What may be less and less likely is value, it might only exist as perceived value at a personal level. Workers are scarce and pick dates are paramount. Wine quality is at risk due to heat spikes at harvest with no workers available. It is hard for many to understand how the skills are transferred but it really can’t happen on-the-job unless the vineyard is willing to take risks. Most also don’t understand the economics of just 1 vine. They say “Oh well just plant another $6 vine and you are good”. The true economics of getting that 1 vine back up to production is immense. When I was in my wine entrepreneur class a manager from one of the higher end vineyards came in and talked about how a car drove through a fence and knocked out several vines. His estimate was that each vine was over 1K in value to replace. The skill in raising a vine is not to be taken lightly. We are up to $17.50 for our workers and I was hearing others over $18. You would think that some people would want more money per hour instead of working in fast food. I’m not seeing it, nor will we till there is a dramatic turn of events workplace wise. Not only is it skilled, but it is backbreaking work day after day and only true fiscal hurt or desire for a better life, like immigrants are chasing, will change this. Maybe it still won’t. I didn’t see a spike in rural going into vineyard work after the last recession. This brings me to my digression.
I’m sure we will have more than our share of folks looking for work when blindsided truckers(our #1 job) lose their employment to the inevitable upcoming automation of distribution chain through automated vehicles. Maybe then we will have a native workforce for farming. You can see/hear this fear in Musk’s comments about a universal wage.
Because “unemployed inner city people” is always connected to a stereotype of Black people. FYI, Oakland, the city with the largest Black population near Sonoma and Napa, has a 5.4% unemployment rate, slightly below the state-wide figure of 5.5%.
Why don’t you say “unemployed trailer park people” or “unemployed hillbillies” or “unemployed North Dakota oil field workers”? Those call up a different racial stereotype.
Working in the food industry we talk about this fairly often. I’ve always felt on the short term costs will obviously go up as people scramble for quick solutions. However with time, mechanical equipment will be developed/improved and the process will become more automated. I would assume this equipment exists today, however given the potential sharp demand for solutions, technology would be improved.
With every problem, there’s a solution and a way for someone to make money…
(The random thoughts of a Food Scientist)
You read to far into things people say. Again the larger concentrated areas for unemployed people are to be found inside large cities. Driving a buses around back roads of small rural towns would be cost prohibitive and stupid. Setting up field offices in urban areas and advertising AG jobs while telling these people to meet up on Sunday night for the bus ride into Napa for transportation for the following work week, would make more sense. See where I am going with this? It’s called a solution to the posted op problem. And if you really believe the unemployed is 6.3%, you are in denial.
It’s no solution, Joe. Make the jobs attractive enough, and maybe you can get the locals to fill them. I would hate to make all of these jobs available to only black folks, who are a small percentage of the unemployed. Just doesn’t seem fair.
Except that these would be undocumented workers as well.
First off, you said “black folks” not me. I said Americans.
Secondly, at the wages I am being told and see online for this AG work , between $17-$26 per hour, plus benefits which apparently include housing, food and possible 401k (yes I read that on the inter web) along with some health programs. I am thinking if you can get the buses to the neighborhoods and the word out, the Americans might show up.
I think the problem here is that you’re comparing a population that has self-selected into migrating to a general population of poor and/or unemployed. There are many millions of poor Mexicans who haven’t chosen to be migrant workers in the US. If you set up better incentives and services for inner-city unemployed to fill vineyard positions, you’ll probably attract a small part of that population.
FIFY. Much clearer
This was tried on the central coast in 2011.
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Guest Worker Program, Labor, Opinion/Editorial/Commentary
We Need a Commonsense Guest Worker Program
Posted by Farmworkers Forum ⋅ 30 October 2011 ⋅ Leave a comment
Filed Under guest worker program, labor shortage
From CalCoastNews.com, John Salisbury, Opinion, 29 Oct 2011.
John Salisbury
John Salisbury
A report on our Citizen wine grape picking crew. After a “Call to Arms” for local unemployed citizens to pick grapes that started in our monthly column in the Avila Community News and our blog inthevines.com, we were picked up by Cal Coast News, Lewis Perdue’s international “New Fetch” wine blog (you should get it if you want to know what is going on in the wine business worldwide), ‘Wines and Vines’, WineBusiness.com and by KSBY’s television newscast.
We had over 80 inquiries for the jobs. We had forty come in and fill out a five page application from which we picked 22 to come in for an interview with four of those not showing up. So we took the 18 remaining and started picking on a Wednesday. That day cost us over $500 a ton which is three times the normal. The next day it picked up a little.
We were becoming worried because we were getting behind as the Pinot Noir was quickly getting ripe. So we brought in one of our veteran documented crews on the third day. They (75 percent women) lapped the citizen crew. The fourth day was a Saturday and four of the “citizen crew” didn’t call or show up and at the end of the day we let another six go because they just weren’t up to the job and hadn’t showed any improvement or the desire to do so. It was obvious this was their first time in the field or else the first job ever for some of the younger pickers (some were “volunteered” by their mothers).
That left us with eight, one of whom could only work two weeks resulting in the “Magnificent Seven” (out of 80) and quite a diverse group it is. The leader is a retired Lt. Col. Air Force Chaplin, plus an unemployed waitress, a graphic designer, a fine young man from Transitions Mental Health, and three young fellows with various degrees of college education. Three members of this crew do quality control by taking leaves and bad bunches out of the bins plus picking while the others are pure pickers. To date they are averaging around $12 an hour.
At this point, I wouldn’t trade them for anybody but unquestionably they will not be back next season because they will all certainly get better jobs in the meantime.
We had to really chaff through the straw to get the kernels and this process is not sustainable. We are bit lucky here because we are near urban populations. But what about those in the remote rural areas where most of the ag-jobs are? How do they get the unemployed, hours away, to the fields? Because of regulations (ask Dan DeVaul), you can’t house them anymore unless you have something akin to a Motel 6 on the ranch. How are farmers going to be able to do this with our unemployed with an unreal dropout rate of over 90 percent as in our case? We guaranteed $80 a day and worked mostly six to seven hours a day to get the fruit into our co-op crusher cool and before the bigger growers tied up the equipment. So the days were not that long for the tough work and the weather was cool in Avila, but we still couldn’t keep most of the citizen pickers.
Nationwide there is an acute shortage of farm workers including California. Washington apple growers who are running radio ads offering $120 to $150 a day to pick apples with few takers. Washington state officials figure that the agriculture labor force is about 72 percent “document challenged.”
Georgia figures there are 5,200 jobs short for field workers. Alabama, which brought it on themselves with the country’s toughest immigration laws, is reporting huge shortage of labor for construction, agriculture and poultry. Texas is looking for pickers for organic crops without much luck. When these crops are not picked, all the people, mostly U.S. citizens, who process, ship, sell, provide goods and services to all parts of the agribusiness chain also don’t work. The domino effect is tremendous.
Farmers are stuck to the land and do not have the privilege of an Apple or Gap that can move their production to countries with many low wage workers with little protection for the employees.
Contrary to popular belief, we usually pay at least 20 percent above the minimum wage. We are regularly inspected by OSHA, EPA, Air Quality Control, Dept. of Pesticide Regulations, Regional Water, and County Ag Commissioner and on and on. We supply the safest food in the world at a reasonable price that must rise just by supply and demand if this labor situation is not brought under control.
The alternate is the importation of foods grown with $8 a day labor and a lack of government oversight on food safety. If you like your oil coming from unfriendly regimes, then you are really going to love your food coming from them.
I have seen many comments about subsidies for farmers – hardly in California. My family has been farming in the state for 161 years (1850) and there were not any subsidies in tough times for us when trying to hang onto the farm. Crop insurance costs money and doesn’t come close to paying for what can be lost in potential wine sales.
With the coddling child labor laws, farmers can’t take the risk of hiring anyone under 18. They can’t use ladders, work near operating equipment, use sharp equipment (shears) and many other restrictions which have led to the demise of the present day work ethic that many of my generation fortunately developed as kids while working on farms and at other businesses. How many of our unemployed are fraudulently gaming the system with unemployment insurance, welfare, and social security disability payments instead of being available to work on farms? At least 20 of the applicants that responded to our call for pickers were physically able to do the job but wanted cash so as to not jeopardize their government payments.
We need a guest worker program now. The Obama administration has initiated twice as many immigration enforcement cases against businesses in the first seven months of this year as compared to the year before. And he gets a pass with the Hispanic voters?
The labor pool is drying up because of fears of the migrant workers who are finding out that the business owners can’t risk the penalties for hiring undocumented workers. We need a guest worker program with USDA certified employers, taxes paid, proper wages, good working conditions, licensed and insured drivers. They can easily net a thousand dollars a month which goes a long way in a town or village where workers may make $250 a month if they have a job.
In a few years, most won’t be back to be replaced with others, because they will have made enough money to buy a farm, market, or be able to use their acquired skills in business and live where they really want to be – home. There also will not be the need to bring their families across the border to live. That practice started when the Bracero Program was halted in the mid-1960s and has led to some of our social