>Today, I read that 42% of the agricultural laborers in California between
>1995 and 1997 were illegal aliens.
>I am wondering if anyone can comment on what sort of structural changes
>would be necessary for California to meet its agricultural
>labor needs using legal laborers ?
Jane Sooby responded:
>California agriculture relies on migrant, illegal workers. There is no
>question about meeting the labor requirement with "legal" labor--big ag is
>dependent upon inexpensive labor provided by the migrant work force. This
is
>why California's recent referendum denying health care to illegal aliens
>struck me as so incredibly hypocritical: the California economy benefits
>greatly from this labor pool yet simultaneously the public wants to deny
the
>workers even emergency medical treatment and to throw their children out
of
>school.
The California economy may indeed benefit greatly from the presence of
migrant workers, but it is taxpayers (the public) who must pay for the
services that those workers & their families require. I'm not from
California or even a yank, but it seems to me that there is a revolt
against those rightly or wrongly percieved as "free riders". That is,
enjoying the services yet not paying for them.
>A relative of mine sells seed in the delta region of the San Joaquin
valley.
>He told me that when INS agents are spotted by one farmer, they call the
>others in the neighborhood so that the illegals can be hidden before INS
>arrives.
Their behaviour is rational from their own point of view: Growers want
continued access to that pool of labour candidates for themselves & for
their neighbours; Mexicans will swim the border as long as the reward for
illegal day labour in Ca exceeds the pay of an unskilled labourer in Oaxaca
or some other remote Mx province... Their behaviour differs little from
that of Irish, Italian & Jewish immigrants in the previous century.
>To whom would it be desirable that the California ag labor pool be legal?
Public policy can sometimes level the playing field & at least give access
to social services to legalised workers, provide (minimal) labour
conditions & require them to pay taxes like everyone else...
>One further observation: at a workshop on sugarbeet production here in
>Nebraska a year ago, one of the stated goals of the researchers was to
>eradicate the need for manual labor. How do they do this? By substituting
>chemicals. Who does this affect? Though the subtext of this agenda could
>never be addressed at a production meeting, this "goal" is code for "Let's
>get rid of the migrant workers." I'm not so sure researchers are qualified
>to make this decision.
I'm not arguing the morality here, but growers will substitute alternative
technologies (man-power; horse-power; chemical-power) until the lowest
production cost matrix is achieved regardless of what we think. That is,
people with hoes will employed as long as they are cheaper than a bag of
chemical. The chemical will be employed as long as it is cheaper than a
mechanical device etc... Sometimes we may be able to lessen the pain &
internalise some of the externalised costs.
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