IMMIGRATION AND AGRICULTURAL LABOR POLICIES

provided by Research Papers in Economics

IMMIGRATION AND AGRICULTURAL LABOR
POLICIES

Robert W. Glover

Center for the Study of Human Resources
University of Texas at Austin

For 50 years, a series of books have detailed the plight of the farm-
worker and advocated change. The titles of some of these books alone
convey the message: The Grapes of Wrath (1939), III Fares the Land
(1942), No Harvest for the Reaper (1960), They Harvest Despair (1965),
The Slaves WeRent (1965), Army of Despair (1968), Uprooted Children
(1970), Sweatshops in the Sun (1973), Hard Travelling (1976), A Caste
OfDespair (1981), Bitter Harvest (1981).

Migrant workers and their families have been the subject of tele-
vision documentaries by all three major networks as well as by public
television, including Harvest of Shame (CBS, 1960), Migrant (NBC,
1970), Dirt Cheap (ABC, 1973) and A Day Without Sunshine (Public
Television, 1976).

Given the considerable publicity devoted to portraying conditions of
farmwork as “a harvest of shame”, it is little wonder that farmwork
is considered a “last resort” by workers, some farmers and the Amer-
ican public.

The public image of farm labor even has seemed to influence views
of agricultural economists and agricultural extension personnel. In-
deed, within the agricultural community, conventional wisdom might
be summarized as follows:

Agricultural labor is a relatively unimportant issue, because
expenditures for hired labor amount to only a few cents of each
agricultural production dollar. The need for agricultural labor
has declined precipitously during this century and, as forecasts
from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics remind us, the outlook
is for continued decline in the future.

Further, given the low rates of productivity inherent in hand
harvest operations, the unavoidable seasonality of harvest work,
the perishable nature of the crops and the highly competitive
product markets which farmers face, there is little that can be
done to change “harvest of shame” conditions. Hand harvest op-
erations are unavoidable, hard, and dirty work yielding low wages.

144

1   2   3   4   >>

More intriguing information