The following report is based on an article prepared by John Stumbos, Information Representative in Agricultural Communications at the University of California, Davis. Stumbos attended the Agricultural Labor Research Symposium and issued his release in July.
Many social scientists foresee continuance of a largely international and partly illegal farm labor force, despite the comprehensive immigration reform law of 1986. A somber assessment of impacts from the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) characterized much of a symposium on agricultural labor research held June 5 and 6, 1991, in Napa.
What emerged from the conference was a picture of the seasonal farm labor market vastly different from the one envisioned when IRCA became law five years ago. Since the federal legislation has not stemmed the tide of illegal border crossings from Mexico into the United States, it has not resulted in better job security, housing conditions, or income for the nation's million and a half farm workers.
Co-sponsors of the Agricultural Labor Research Symposium - the first conference of its kind in nearly a decade - were the state Employment Development Department (EDD), U.S. Department of Labor, UC Agricultural Personnel Management Program, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics at UC Berkeley, and Agricultural Issues Center at UC Davis.
The Relaborization of Agriculture
In contrast to shifts away from labor-intensive crop production projected when IRCA was passed, a "relaborization" of California agriculture has been taking place, according to Juan Vicente Palerm, director of the Center for Chicano Studies at UC Santa Barbara.
A steady stream of predominantly Mexican-born males continues to flee Mexico's impoverished economy in hopes of a better life and an adventure in El Norte. These illegal immigrants are attracted by substantially increased need for labor in fruit, vine, vegetable, and horticultural crops. Although border interceptions are high, roughly 1.5 million a year, large numbers of undocumented aliens from Mexico, Central America, and other countries slip through and find their way to fields in California and other western states.
Key to IRCA's enforcement are fines against employers who knowingly hire illegal aliens. "[But] employers are not effectively screening out undocumented workers from their crews," said Andrew Alvarado, a professor from California State University, Fresno. "Borrowed or fraudulent documents are easily obtainable."
Alvarado recently completed an "ethnographic" study of 350 farm workers employed in the Fresno area. Although significant variations exist among employers in different crops, the workers are generally making less money than they did before IRCA, working for shorter periods during the year, and are not being treated as well.
Invisible Societies
One of the primary goals of immigration reform was to protect and enlarge the relative share of legal U.S. residents in the agricultural labor force. That goal may be impossible to achieve because recruitment of domestic farm workers is difficult, at best. A study of the "typical" farm worker community of Parlier, for instance, concluded that the town's potential supply of new, resident farm workers has been exhausted. Most of the heads of household in Parlier are farm workers, some of whom gained legal status under IRCA's amnesty program. But the study found their children are "very uninterested" in going into farm work.
"What we have to focus on is that less than 10 percent of the farm workers are U.S. citizens," said David Runsten, director of research for the California Institute of Rural Studies and one of the earlier study's authors." This has important implications for government policy. We have to abandon the myth of a U.S. labor force."
The reality, Runsten observed, is that there has been a "broadening and a deepening" of the migration into the United States since Mexico's economy began to crumble in the late 1970s. The "obvious result" is an excess supply of farm workers, leading most agricultural employers to eliminate health insurance benefits and has sent wages "slipping inexorably toward minimum wage."
Another not-so-obvious consequence of this increased migration is the formation of Chicano and Mexican enclaves within the state's farming communities. Palerm, who is also an anthropology professor at UC Santa Barbara, said these communities "contain the vast majority of the state's rural poor and often present grotesque images of blight and deprivation not unlike those commonly found in inner-city ghettos and slums."
Nearly 150 of these enclaves are in various stages of development throughout California's agricultural regions. Palerm noted two trends that seem to be fueling their formation. First, the growing urban influx of migrants from Mexico and Central America has increased competition for low-skilled urban jobs and has thus diminished the customary rural to urban migration. Second, agriculture's emphasis on labor-intensive specialty crops is "in great measure" responsible for the settlement of former migrant farm workers. These enclaves have received little research attention and, as a result, have become "invisible societies" shown negligible public concern.
Rise of Farm Labor Contractors
Many growers, reluctant to take risks hiring illegal aliens or cope with other complications of direct employment, have increasingly turned to farm labor contractors to supply them with workers. These "middlemen" recruit and supervise up to half the state's farm labor force and are major first employers of new immigrants. In some instances, farm labor contractors also provide housing, transportation, and meals to the workers. FLC workers, however, are often charged excessive fees for those services.
If IRCA were functioning as designed, said UC Davis agricultural economist Ed Taylor, the role of the farm labor contractor would shift - from that of a "revolving door" for illegal immigrants to that of a manager of a legal, more stable workforce. But Taylor's analysis of California's unemployment insurance records shows a "significant increase" in the turnover rate of farm employees. "This is not a picture of a smaller, more legal workforce," he said. "This is a picture of a labor market fed by illegal immigration."
While some farm labor contractors may fit the image of a "sleazy bunch of crew bosses," notes attorney and agricultural economist Suzanne Vaupel, "the great majority I've met are honest, hard-working people trying to stick to the laws." Vaupel has interviewed more than 60 farm labor contractors this year in another EDD-sponsored study by the University of California. She found that, while most farm labor contractors are Hispanic, former foremen, some are Anglos who have worked with custom-harvesting operations. Still others come from backgrounds having nothing to do with agriculture - a seamstress, an electrical engineer, even a former school superintendent were among those interviewed.
Lupe Sandoval, a former farm worker who has conducted interviews for the current study, is more critical of farm labor contractors. "There are too many bad apples out there," he said. "Unfortunately, many aren't qualified to be employers." He charged that the test to become a farm labor contractor is so easy that "an eighth grader with common sense and a little knowledge about farm worker safety and pesticides could pass that test."
Sandoval, who is also involved in health and safety training for agricultural workers, proposed that farm labor contractors be required to pursue continuing education in the same manner as pest control professionals. "There's no penalty for not staying up to date with rules and regulations." Uneven enforcement of regulations is yet another problem he noted. High-profile contractors who are usually in compliance with the law are more likely to get audited by authorities, while unlicensed contractors go unchecked.
Economic Realities
Howard Rosenberg, UC Berkeley Agricultural Labor Economist, explained the growers' dilemma and the economic realities aggravating the farm labor situation. "Although many California farmers have personnel policies designed to cultivate employee good will and stability, most seasonal farm workers still have to endure hard work, low pay, and uncertain job opportunities," he said. "The highly competitive nature of fruit and vegetable markets forces firms to control their costs and liabilities, and glutted labor market conditions invite them to do so."
Rosenberg noted that some production technologies, such as in dairies and machine-harvested vineyards, lend themselves more easily to stable and rewarding terms of employment. The big, seasonal swings in labor needed to produce most fruits and vegetables, however, make it more difficult for workers to earn a steady living in those crops. Seasonality adds also to the grower's challenge of having the right number of appropriately skilled workers to perform work when needed.
"The immigration reform law was expected to reduce the overall supply
of farm labor and lead to better conditions for domestic workers,"
Rosenberg added. "It has done nothing of the sort." Even companies
long known for progressive management have found it hard to maintain their
traditions under the circumstances that have developed, according to Al
Guilin, vice president of Limoneira Company in Ventura County.
In summarizing a day and a half of discussion on agricultural labor,
Bert Mason, a professor at California State University, Fresno, put it bluntly:
"IRCA is a colossal failure." He believes the law could be enforced
if sufficient resources were applied to it. But as long as "huge waves"
of illegal immigrants enter the country, agricultural labor conditions will
continue to deteriorate. "It's the competitive nature of the supply
structure."
Back to: Contents | LMD Main Page | APMP Home