Thread: Pearanoia—Latest Scam From The Cheap Labor Lobby

Pearanoia—Latest Scam From The Cheap Labor Lobby
By Steve Sailer

You’ve been hearing it everywhere: a shortage of illegal aliens has caused The Great Pear Crisis of 2006.

This storyline showed up first in the New York Times (Pickers Are Few, and Growers Blame Congress, by Julia Preston, September 22, 2006), and then on CNN and Fox News.

Senators Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Larry Craig (R-ID) have been lecturing us on how $10 million worth of pears are rotting in the orchards of Lake County in northern California because there just aren't enough illegal aliens to pick them—not for love or money.

So, the Senators inform us, we need another Guest Peasant program to import more pickers or (so I gather) we'll never taste a pear again in our lives.

(Cue the voice of a hungry Homer Simpson in a reverie: "Sweeeeet juicccy pearrrsss").

Piling on, the Washington Post ran an AP story, complete with a quote from the appalling Tamar Jacoby, entitled Farms Facing Worker Shortage for Harvest about how we'll all be boiling old shoes to gnaw on for our suppers, or something, unless Congress opens up the borders further.

Needless to say, the article is lacking in evidence documenting a shortage of illegals other than the testimony of their employers.

You'll recognize these as the typical prefabricated "news" stories that the Open Borders lobby generates on autopilot to justify importing more cheap labor. It’s in the same vein as The Everlasting Nurse Shortage that we've been reading for decades. Google lists 111,000 pages featuring the phrase "nurse shortage," even though economists point out that there's no such thing in a market economy as a “shortage”: there is just a price that somebody with political influence (in the case of nurses' wages, doctors and hospital administrators) would rather not pay.

The amusing thing about the late-September round of Pear Pearanoia articles is that the local Sacramento Bee had already exposed them back on September 12, 2006 as the pre-planned product of growers trying to badger Congress:

Labor Shortages Don't Materialize in California

By Jim Downing, September 12, 2006

"All year, California farm groups have complained that congressional inaction on overhauling immigration laws, coupled with tightening border controls, would lead to a critical shortage of labor.

"With harvest time having arrived, state agricultural leaders are preparing to join their counterparts from around the country this week for a major lobbying push in Washington. They have been gathering anecdotes describing what they say is a damaging labor crisis in the state: Overripe pears are rotting in Sacramento and Lake counties, peaches went unpicked near Fresno, and according to one industry group, at least a few farmers are contemplating a move to Mexico, where cheap labor is plentiful and legal."

Downing's article went on to debunk the main claim:

"So far, however, state surveys show no discernible drop in total farm employment for May, June and July, though an uptick in farm wages suggests a tighter labor supply…

"Looking only at state agricultural employment data, though, there's little sign of farm jobs going unfilled. The market usually varies seasonally with about 300,000 jobs in the winter rising to roughly 430,000 jobs from May through September. This year—at least through July, the latest figures available—was little different.”

Metropolitan news outlets like the New York Times are particularly gullible when being snowed by the agricultural interests' public relations flacks. Big city reporters and editors just don't understand the peculiarities of agricultural economics:

First, the ungrasped key to understanding the Great Pear Crisis comes in the opening lines of Julia Preston’s NYT article:

"The pear growers here in Lake County waited decades for a crop of shapely fruit like the one that adorned their orchards last month… 'I felt like I went to heaven,' said Nick Ivicevich, recalling the perfection of his most abundant crop in 45 years of tending trees."

Oh yeah? A basic rule of agricultural economics: a good year for a crop tends to be a bad year for the crop's farmers. When the harvest is abundant, prices go down and the cost of hiring enough labor to pick all the extra produce goes up. Sometimes it doesn't even pay to harvest the full crop.

Second, there are dozens of different crops. Every year there's an over-abundance of something.

If it's not pears, it's walnuts or strawberries or something else. That allows the PR consultants to concoct fill-in-the-blanks press releases about the shortage of ____ pickers long before the harvest begins.

Third, due to weather fluctuations, crops mature at different times, making efficient scheduling of labor difficult.

For example, according to Downing’s Bee story, Lake County pears normally ripen after Sacramento Delta pears, so the same workers can pick both. But this year, unusual weather delayed the Delta pears—meaning the experienced crews were still tied up in the Delta when the huge crop in Lake County ripened on roughly its normal schedule.

This unavoidable uncertainty means that harvesting is prone to a hurry-up-and-wait syndrome making it an inefficient user of labor. Citing Philip Martin, the UC Davis economist who is the leading expert on farm laborers, Downing explained:

"The agricultural labor market in California differs from other industries in that the total number of laborers in any year is typically much larger than the number of jobs. A state study based on 2001 data found that while the number of farm jobs averaged 388,000 through the year, about 1.1 million different people filled those jobs."

In other words, the growers suck in three people from south of the border for every job they have on average.

The social problem with this inefficiency is this: the farm owners aren't paying the full cost of their illegal laborers. The farmers are massively cost-shifting to the public. We pick up the tab for their workers' medical care, their workers' children's education, and so forth. Thus, the inevitably awkward use of labor on farms exacerbates the growers’ socialization of what should be their costs.

Fourth, farm jobs are a "gateway drug" for illegal immigration, luring in huge numbers of immigrants who get used up and then move on to something else, leaving the growers with a voracious hunger for new illegal immigrants.

For instance, pear-picking is a young man's job in California because there has been an endless supply of young men from south of the border to clamber up and down ladders.

In contrast, in Spain, growers have bought motorized picking platforms that don't burn out their employees as fast.

Fifth, the cost savings to consumers from cheap farm labor are minimal.

Of course, politicians who rely on agribusiness campaign contributions would have you believe otherwise:

"Feinstein predicted sharp increases in the prices of fruits and vegetables, and a revolt by consumers if they find themselves faced with ‘buying lettuce at $2 a head or more, or broccoli at $5 a head or anything else because of the dramatic shortage.’ [ A Plea to Save State's Farmers, By Carolyn Lochhead, San Francisco Chronicle, 9/30/06]

Oh yeah (again)? The official Consumer Price Index inflation rate for food and beverages was only 2.5% in the year ending last August, compared to an overall inflation rate of 3.8%.

Consider strawberries, the notoriously labor-intensive crop called " la fruta del diablo" by the stoop laborers who pick them. The San Francisco Chronicle quoted economist Martin:

“‘If (the consumer) spends $1 on a pint of strawberries, the farmer's getting 18 cents. He gives about one-third of that to farmworkers, so they make 6 cents.’ So even if the labor cost were to double, that would still only be a 6 cent increase per pint.” THE IMMIGRATION DEBATE | Effect on economy depends on viewpoint, by Carolyn Said, May 21, 2006]

For many fresh fruits and vegetables, the price increase would be significantly less. And, over time, growers would mechanize or, in the rare cases where that was impossible, would shift their operations to Mexico.

Sixth, farm work attracts to America laborers who even by the standards of illegal immigrants bring minimal levels of human capital with them.

Many farmworkers from Mexico don't even speak Spanish. There are approximately 100,000 Mixtec-speaking Indians in California now. How they are going to assimilate into the American middle class when they haven't assimilated into the Mexican working class in the 485 years since Cortez?

Seventh, as historian Cletus E. Daniel has pointed out, the defining characteristic of California's corporate farms has been " the search for a peasantry." Does 21st Century California truly need more peasants?

As the great management guru Peter Drucker pointed out in 2004:

"But the immigrants have a mismatch of skills: They are qualified for yesterday's jobs, which are the kinds of jobs that are going away."

But if California's Big Ag continues to get its way, these primitive jobs will be around forever—along with an endless stream of new peasants...and an endless supply of new social and political problems for ordinary Americans.

http://www.vdare.com/

November 03, 2005

Diamonds And Doom-Mongering: The Western Growers Association Wants More Illegal Mexicans

By Bryanna Bevens

My first year working at California's State Capitol in Sacramento was basically a lot of guesswork. And more often than not, I guessed wrong.

Western Growers Association was having a little shindig at a restaurant just down the street from the Capitol.

My boss at the time was a member of the Assembly Committee on Agriculture.

So naturally, we were invited.

I had never been to a WGA party. But I assumed that it was a fairly casual event because, well, they were farmers.

Yeah, not so much.

There were so many diamonds in that room that, were it not for the fact that everybody was white and (except me!) middle aged, you would think you had stumbled into a party for Def Jam Records.

(That would be rap music, people.)

Oh yeah, I thought I was Ms. Thang in my favorite black Armani suit (with a subtle stripe). So I was especially miffed to find the women were better dressed than I —it just wasn’t fair…they were supposed to be wearing overalls and straw hats!

But these women looked like they fell off the pages of Vogue!

I had no idea that California farmers did so well.

As it turned out, they were by far the wealthiest industry I ever encountered in Sacramento—and the most powerful lobby (with the exception of the California Teachers Association, worst by a wide margin).

For example, WGA’s current Chairman of the Board is John Powell Jr. who owns Peter Rabbit Farms.

According to the University of California at Davis’s Rural Migration News:

“Peter Rabbit Farms, founded in 1950, is a 5,000 acre operation, including 2,000 acres of carrots, 600 acres of grapes, and 600 acres of lemons, grapefruit, and oranges. Peter Rabbit has 120 year-round and 1,500 peak winter employees.”

Their motto? "We Just Keep Growing." Yeah.

Underestimating the farming industry is a mistake that many make—but none should.

In 1997, somewhat older and wiser, I was taking a couple of Assemblymen and one Senator on a tour of the Central Valley. We drove south on highway 99 and took an exit near Selma, California.

One Assemblyman said the area smelled like manure and fertilizer.

I laughed and said “You mean it smells like money and power.”

Western Growers Association, based in Irvine, California, represents 3000 farmers in California and Arizona.

Honestly, I have mixed feelings about this industry. These are good, hard working, conservative people. Many of them became good friends.

But they also have an extraordinary sense of entitlement and a flair for dramatics. There is always a looming crisis…our food supply is always in danger.

Forgive me for not panicking, perhaps vegetarians will riot in the streets…but the farming industry is always bellyaching about something.

They need more water, they need more subsidies, they need more tax exemptions and most of all…they need illegal farm workers.

Uh huh…they need them.

Earlier this month, VDARE.COM’s Joe Guzzardi told us about the farm labor shortage in California and how it has allegedly devastated the raisin crop.

(Allegedly, there wasn’t enough farm labor from Mexico. I suppose only Mexicans can harvest raisins.)

Last week, they told us the lettuce crop will rot because there is no one to harvest it. [Farmers fear winter crops will rot in Arizona's fields, by Bob Christie, The York Dispatch, October 25, 2005]

According to the farmers in Yuma County, tighter security on the Mexican border has created a farm labor shortage in Arizona.

Arizona produces 90 percent of the country’s lettuce during the winter months.

And, apparently, only Mexicans can pick lettuce too.

Last week, representatives from WGA met with Yuma officials to warn them about the potential lettuce disaster. According to the Arizona Republic (State farmers lose workers, profits to border sweeps by Susan Carroll, November 3, 2005) they also made a formal request that border patrol agents pull back their efforts during the harvest.

Western Growers is currently lobbying in Washington for emergency legislation that would allow guest workers from Mexico on a temporary basis for this year’s winter season.

Tom Nassif, a lawyer and former ambassador to Morocco, is the current President of WGA. [Email him.] After his meeting with Yuma officials, he summarized the plan during a press conference later in the day.

"We're trying to find a short-term solution until the Congress develops the political will to come up with compromise legislation that gives us a legal and stable work force.” [Ariz. farmers fear worker shortage By Bob Christie, Associated Press October 24, 2005]

This is all justified by a…labor crisis?

According to Western Growers itself, the lettuce industry in Arizona has “exploded” over the last three years:

“Arizona’s top fresh produce commodity is lettuce with $356 million in cash receipts for 2003, which has rapidly exploded to $590 million in 2004.”

Yuma County, Arizona also has a 24 percent unemployment rate. [pdf]

Hmm…how can they have a 24% unemployment rate and a labor shortage at the same time?

Answer: they don’t. WGA doesn’t want legal farm labor—it wants cheap farm labor.

The farming industry does not fear a cut in the food supply—it fears a cut in its profits.

Bottom line: The folks at Western Growers [contact them] will continue to issue threat con delta warnings as various crops come to harvest.

But I’m not too worried about it.

Thanks to their support of NAFTA and CAFTA (that’s a story for another column) I can always buy my lettuce from a farmer in Mexico.

http://www.vdare.com/bevens/051103_mexicans.htm