Central California growers struggle with farmworker shortage

[FarCenter]

Darrell Smith - Modesto Bee

Kevin Steward has spent more than a quarter-century in agriculture, much of that growing grapes for wineries. He's always been able to rely on seasonal workers to tend the vines and bring in the year's harvest.

But this year, workers are harder to come by.

"I could use 30 men," Steward said. "We'll get 'er done, but I can't find anybody."

Growers around the Central Valley are wringing their hands as they struggle to find the manpower they need, though the situation appears better in Stanislaus County.

Read more here: http://www.newsobserver.com/2012/06/11/2129633/central-california-growers-struggle.html

[Teamster Jeff]

1. There is no "Worker Shortage". There is a huge "Pay Shortage"

[nanabugg]

10. Don't feel too sorry for the farmers who rarely suffer loss thanks to huge Fed subsidies.

They want it both ways They don't want to pay decent wages and were satisfies with hiring illegals to do their work instead of poor white and African American citizens. Mainly because they would have answer for the poor working conditions and pay of citizens while no one cared about the treatment of illegals. My heart doesn't bleed for most of them.

[gopiscrap]

2. Yeah if you paid them a decent wage

and didn't treat them like shit, maybe more would want to work for you?

[Speck Tater]

5. Of course that would triple the cost of wine, but only rich snobs drink wine anyway, right?

The will come a time when mechanization will make human labor be no longer cost effective and there won't be any jobs for anybody. When that happens, and even well before it happens completely, we are going to need a totally different kind of economy; one not based on pay for labor and labor for pay.

Somehow, everybody will need to be able to survive when there are no jobs for anybody, anywhere. Any ideas how that might work?

[upaloopa]

7. John Steinveck wrote a book about your kind of thinking. "The Grapes of Wrath" You should read it

[Speck Tater]

8. I've read it. Twice. It's a heart breaker for sure.

I don't see how anyone can read it and remain a conservative. To my mind it really brings to life the whole reason why we are liberals.

[MineralMan]

9. No, actually it would do nothing of the sort.

Labor costs for picking grapes for wine are a small part of the price of a bottle of wine. Even doubling the pay for the workers who pick the grapes would have just a small effect on the cost to consumers for buying the wine. If you understood the process of growing grapes and producing wine, you'll understand that what you posted is ridiculous.

[Speck Tater]

14. You're right. I know nothing about it.

I'm just speculating based on the fact that I keep hearing about how small farmers are struggling to even survive, and how the middle man takes the biggest share of the profits, and that the small farmer gets meager scraps. So how does the small farmer pay higher wages out of the meager scraps the big distributors throw him?

It's not a question of how much pickers wages contribute to the cost of a bottle of wine, but a question of how the small farmer can even stay in business if the distributors squeeze him from one direction and the pickers from the other direction. The REAL solution is to put more money into the pockets of the smaller farmers so that they CAN pay more in wages. But that would require fighting the big-money distributors who, it seems, hold all the power right now.

[MineralMan]

16. Yes, small farmers have great difficulties. No question about that.

I can't really address solutions for that problem. I'm replying to your contention that increasing farm worker wages would triple the cost of a bottle of wine. That doesn't make any sense at all. While the farmer might have to increase prices for his crop to pay workers more, most wine is grown by huge corporate vineyards. Smaller vineyards, owned by individual farmers, are a different matter altogether.

The bottom line is that labor costs for picking grapes is a tiny percentage of the cost of a bottle of wine. What that means is that higher labor costs will have a tiny proportional effect on the consumer price for that bottle of wine. It's important to get this stuff right, if we're going to understand things.

Right now, the real problem with farm workers who pick crops is less the amount their paid than the availability of any workers at all. It's short-term, transient work, and transient farm workers are fickle. If there are not enough of them, they go where there is more work for a longer time, if wages are the same in different places. It's very simple.

Picking wine grapes is a short-term thing, and isn't that attractive to farm workers. When there is shortage of workers, the problem increases. The problem is exacerbated by the nature of the work. It's hard, hot, sweaty work. There's no way around that. Many people cannot and will not do the job, whatever the pay. Those who will are in short supply. And there it is.

[midnight]

12. The business model of rape and plunder is a real killer...

Unions tried to address that, but when they got to uppity by demanding collective bargaining the "right to plunder" I mean the "right to work" crowd had to get down to the business at hand...

[handmade34]

3. just a few numbers to go along with that

http://www.usda.gov/nass/PUBS/TODAYRPT/fmla0512.txt

http://farmworkersforum.wordpress.com/

[FarCenter]

4. Field workers in CA, a little over $10 / hour.

[Permanut]

6. One of the paradoxes out of the right wing wacko party

the wackos with money want the migrant workers coming in, but they need to posture about borders and illegal aliens.

[GObamaGO]

11. Pay people a decent living wage

And this problem all but disappears. But they do not get that.

[4th law of robotics]

13. Isn't there ~11% unemployment in CA?

Something here doesn't jive.

[Romulox]

15. Cheap labor is not a right. nt