Blog 2, Post A: Shipler, Ch. 4: Migrant Workers

(My cousin Jerry, he's a migrant worker who lives in Washington and picks all the Washington apples that we American's enjoy.  He gets a meager wage, and sends most of his money back home to our family.)

For this post we are to discuss from Shipler's, 'The Working Poor', Chapter 4: how migrant workers are exploited and who benefits from their labor.

There is an array of individuals whom benefit from the labor of migrant workers.  The list starts from the beginning of the migrants' journey; from his family back home to the consumers who enjoy the product that the migrant worker has planted and picked.  The family of a migrant worker benefits the most because they receive anywhere from half to 3/4 of the money earned.  Migrant workers usually have one goal to coming to the U.S. and that is to make money to support their family back home to their native land.  They think that by sending money, it will help their family out of poverty or at the very least meet their daily needs to survive.  My personal opinion is for the families on the receiving end to invest in the money wisely so that they are able to support themselves instead of waiting each month for their loved one to keep sending them money to just spend.

Others who benefit from the migrants' journey include the coyote, the one who smuggles the worker and sometimes his/her spouse across the border.  Most people don't have the complete 'fee' to cross, making themselves indebted to the coyote with promises to pay with their earned labor wages.  Then the migrant must find work to send money to family back home and now to pay the coyote for his services.  In comes the 'contratista' or the contractor, the middle man who is in charge of acquiring workers for the farmers who require labor in their fields.  Without migrant workers, the farmers would not be able to meet the demands of its customers, the markets and corporations who purchase their product.  Lastly, it is us, the consumers of these products, who benefit from the labor of migrant workers, without them we would have no produce to eat, to survive.

Migrant workers are easily exploited because they aren't looked at as people, just temporary workers.  They are over-worked 12-14 hours a day, before sunrise till after sunset.  They are not offered benefits for working, such as health or workers comp.  They are paid per box of produce filled and how much they earn is based on how hard, fast and accurately they are willing to work.  Because they are not looked at as people with souls and feelings, they are treated as dispensable commodities.  They are housed in terrible conditions; like cattle, they are grouped and confined in a small space with hardly any heating and working plumbing.  They are made to sleep in unsanitary, in-humane conditions.  

The contractor's and farmer's exploit these migrant workers because they know that they have nowhere else to go and they (the workers) fear deportation.  Most migrant workers want only to work and don't want to cause any problems, they are aware that there are others in line to take their place in the field, so they work to the bone, they take the abuse, they live in shoddy conditions because this is the price they have to pay so that their families back home can eat and have clothes on their backs and medicine for their ailments.

Unfortunately, I believe there is no end to this cycle.  We need people to work the fields, so that we can eat and feed our own families.  No 'average' American is going to take a job that requires so much labor for pennies on the dollar.  No farmer is going to pay at the very least minimum wage to a worker to harvest the crops. The only thing we can do is to advocate for better working conditions for these workers.  We need to put a face to these workers, like my cousin Jerry.  He is a human, with feelings, with desires to provide a better life for his daughter.  He is only 27 but the lines on his face and the callouses on his hands show otherwise.

Shipler, D. (2005). The Working Poor: Invisible in America. New York: Vintage Books