Old Economy Labor News

Many news outlets (see here and below) are reporting on the serious farm labor shortage happening in California (and probably elsewhere) during this harvest season. The CA Farm Bureau Federation sent out this SOS today, saying that they are unlikely to get anywhere near the 450,000 farmworkers needed to pick this seasons crops, at least 70% of whom are undocumented. Farmers lay the blame on "stricter border enforcement and a crackdown on falsely documented workers--without also taking steps to ensure that farmers have adequate and orderly access to a legal, temporary workforce".

In the Washington Post article, Bruce Goldstein, executive director of the Farmworker Justice Fund, notes "the industry wants 'an oversupply of vulnerable workers so that they can keep wages low and avoid unionization.'"