They’d rather let their crops rot on the trees than respond to the market forces and increase their wages. There is no labour shortage in the US fruit picking labour market; there is a gap between the asking price for labour and the price the farmers are willing to pay.
It is much the same in Canada, although instead of Mexicans we have migrant Quebecois. They smoke almost as much pot, but they complain about the climate less, as you would, too, if you were from James Bay or some godforsaken spot.
In the Fraser Valley, just outside of Vancouver, there have
been several convictions over the past decade for slavery, as well as numerous housing infractions (it is Canada; insulation and roofs are advisable and may be compulsory, imagine that!), assault (beating) charges, one murder that I can recall, as well as several cases of holding workers’ children or elderly parents captive until their work contract was up. Passports? Oh yeah, they keep the passports, too, which is one reason they’re not getting so many immigrants who want to work in this industry; the word has gone around India, and now the farmers are whining loudly about uppity brown people.
Which brings us back to the Americans:
“It’s a laborer’s market right now. My pickers all look at me and say, ‘How much are you going to pay?‘ ” he said. “They all have cell phones, and all they have to do is call up the road and see if anybody else is paying a little more.”
Farmers in that situation are left to decide whether it’s even worth picking the fruit, or just letting it rot, said Dan Fazio, director of employer services for the Washington state Farm Bureau.
“I can fill 10,000 jobs at $15 an hour right now,” he
said. “And we knew this was going to happen. We’ve been warning people for years.”
Farmers across the West for years have complained about a labor shortage to harvest their fruits, vegetables and other crops. Critics have always discounted those claims, saying farmers who pay higher wages have plenty of help.
“At some point, it’s like the boy who cried wolf,” said David Groves, spokesman for the Washington State Labor Council. “It’s just that, at different points in time, we’ve heard this, and we’ve seen evidence that there’s not a labor shortage. There’s just an unwillingness to pay decent wages.”
raincoaster 
I feel that migrant workers have gone through many humiliations and have been paid low wages for many years by wealthy, White farmers. That’s how they maintained their wealth. Now the migrants have found, there is strength in numbers and a unison of the minds.
I applaud them, for I, for one, would not want to do the back breaking job they come to this country to do every year.
America may as well face it. They’re here and are gaining power.
I’m not surprised about the slavery still in existence , not when you have incidences of the same thing in this country concerning women who are hired and then abused because they don’t have green cards.
The people of this country don’t seem to understand, that we have to reap what we sow. With all the corruption and deciet of our government, the killing of innocents; sitting idly by while thousands are slaughtered and starving, (because Sudan is rich in uranium) bullying our way across the world, our people going crazy, raping and killing women and children, children being used as sex objects, murders, drugs……..and we call the Fundamentalist Muslims the enemy, and wonder why they feel that God is on their side and don’t want any part of our…filthy Democracy in their sacred, Bibical lands.
Right now it’s the Katrina victims and the Mexicans being blamed for all the crime. Who’s next…..
Tell me about it. I just read a comment on a British blog that basically claimed George W. Bush was a victim in the Katrina disaster, instead of one of the causes. That those in power will lie and cheat to maintain their hegemony does not surprise me; what does is the sheer number of people who believe that includes them.
What do you expect from farmers? Before the minimum wage here the Agricultural trade association thingy that recommended wages recommended £1.71 per hour for a 16 years old picking fruit – it was increased to £3 per hour by the introduction of the minimum wage. Now the min wage is up to £5.35 per hour for over 21’s but farmers just ignore it and pay by the weight of fruit you pick anyway.
Their all-year round skivvys are usually bona-fide country bumpkins and don’t make any fuss about working 12 hour days for £30.
My family are farmers, and they make sure to pay their help a living wage. There are all kinds of workarounds to avoid paying a good rate, but what you get is an industry with a crappy reputation and, when the economy is strong like ours is, a “labour shortage” which is otherwise known as a labour market correction. It was undervalued before; they will either pay more for their labour in absolute dollars or they will fail to bring in their crops.
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You got a labour shortage? We’ve got loads of usless immigrants clogging up our housing over here, you could have them too if it was up to me.
Hang on, hang on–I thought “labour market correction” was when your boss “had to let you go” because the company “had to become leaner, meaner, and more competitive”.
Not when you actually had to pay people to pick fruit!
Labour Market Correction is an impartial term indicating either an under or oversupply of labour relative to the payment. Take back the streets, take back the market!
WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE, YOU HAVE NOTHING TO LOSE BUT YOUR CHAINS.
Steven, are your immigrants attractive? We only like pretty boys out here on the Wet Coast.