The Plight of the US Farmworker w/ Elaine Chukan Brown
Elaine Chukan Brown describes the history, current situation with new regulations and deportation, and the tension put on vineyard workers’ wages in California and their impacts on the labor market and vineyard workers.
It’s a cycle that has been happening since the late 1800s. The need for agricultural labor in California is a cycle of bringing in labor and then deporting them when they become too visible. Elaine Chukan Brown, wine writer and author of recently published The Wines of California, describes the history, current situation with new regulations and deportation, and the tension put on vineyard workers’ wages in California and their impacts on the labor market and vineyard workers.
Detailed Show Notes:
The Wines of California covers 3 sections:
- How we got here - the history and what context allowed things to happen
- Where we go - the growing regions and key producers
- What we’re facing - marketing challenges, climate change
Interest in farmworkers started with Salud, a medical program for vineyard workers and their families
- Has mobile and physical clinics
- Successful because it provides care for workers and their families
CA is the largest farm region in the US
- Exports 40% of ag production
- Became nationally relevant in the 1900s, which led to the need for farm labor
Sources of farm labor (in chronological order)
- Indigenous people (until smallpox outbreak and reservations)
- China - exchanged labor for citizenship, after 10-15 years, expelled Chinese with the Chinese Exclusion Act
- Japan
- India
- Black sharecroppers from the South (small group)
- Mango (Philippines)
- Mexico (post WWII) - led to the current H2A program
When labor populations grow and get too big, they are expelled, which has been in ~20-year cycles
H2A Program - temporary work visa program
- Cannot be extended or transferred to another employer
- Employers must provide housing & transportation
- Biases towards big business to deal w/ compliance
FDR (1930s/40s) - Labor Protections Act created worker protections, but excluded agriculture
United Farmworkers (1975) - 1st farmworker protection legislation
Association of Farmers - farm wonders banded together to have more leverage against workers
Ever-growing CA labor regulations create large compliance requirements that end up favoring big business
Current system sets up farm workers’ wages as the only lever for farm owners to maintain profit margins and be economically viable (w/w/o gov’t subsidies)
New CA farmworker overtime pay law - 8 hours/day, 40 hours/week before overtime
- Derived from an office worker’s perspective
- Does not match the seasonal work of agriculture
- Employers have small margins, can’t afford overtime rates
- Workers make less money and need to get 2nd or 3rd jobs
- If workers get injured at 2nd job, workers’ comp does not cover wages of the main job
- Employers need to find more workers to do the same amount of work, and lose the experience and skills of the current workforce
Many crops (e.g., strawberries, peaches) need manual labor and can’t be mechanized
ICE raids & deportations: not a new thing, but what’s new is people with documentation (visas, amnesty recipients, citizens) are being detained and deported
- Creating fear, workers not showing up to work (some regions report a 70% drop in workers)
- Workers not going to farms on main roads (too visible)
- Families choose 1 member to go ot work, the other stays home to take care of the kids
- Historically, when the safety of workers is an issue, workers don’t respond to higher pay
US tariffs increase prices to consumers, decreasing sales; it may take decades for consumers to substitute for domestic wines
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