Life isn’t all peaches and cream without immigrant labor

Writer and orchardman, David Mos Masamuto writes in Counterpunch:

Last year for one day, no one came to work in my peach orchard. A row of ladders stood empty. This was my day without immigrant labor.

Without workers, I cannot farm. If I cannot farm, my organic heirloom peaches and raisins won’t reach people’s dinner tables.

Without passage of immigration reform, I can’t get enough help to harvest my fruits. This work is transient and something most Americans won’t do, even with higher wages. Under the current system, which gives so many immigrants illegal status, good workers from south of the border are forced to hide in the shadows, constantly fearful of deportation.

As the debate over undocumented workers unfolds, the growing of food seems to be left out. This debate isn’t just about citizenship. It’s also about who works the fields and how crops are grown. And it’s about working conditions and treating workers fairly — something that I and other small farmers try to do as we labor side by side with our workers.

I know this goes against the grain with some of my colleagues, but the U.S. is going to need some kind of temporary laborer program, though by calling it a “guest worker program” people rightly object that it suggests a second-class kind of immigrant. These kinds of workers aren’t really “immigrants”, since they plan to go home (it’s by making it harder to come seasonally that we’ve created an army of “undocumented aliens.” These are people raising the funds to get their own farm through the off season, or for some specific family goal like education). I’ve known middle-class people who used to come to the U.S., work some crappy job for a few months or a year and go back with a pocketful of cash. Those people are still out there, and wouldn’t be immigrating if they could be sure they’d be able to return home easily, or leave to take care of emergencies.

I’d prefer to see people recruited under contract by the unions, but even companies like Kelly or Manpower could do this. The people providing crappy services (or screwing folks on their contracts) wouldn’t last all that long, as word got around.

Nah… too simple and sensible.