Administration proposals also would
loosen the application requirements by
allowing agribusinesses to employ migrant
workers already in the United States for
up to 120 days while visa applications for
immigrant workers are pending. Finally,
the proposals would establish a pilot pro-
gram that would record biographic or
biometric information about each migrant
worker before they could leave the farm
site at the end of the harvest. This pro-
gram would be aimed at ensuring workers
do not overstay their visas.
Regardless of the fate of these H-2A
program proposals, there are other fac-
tors that drive down farm worker wages
and living conditions. One such factor is
the widespread use by growers of farm
labor contractors. By contracting out hir-
ing, growers can avoid liability for labor
law violations.
Another is the consolidation of the
U.S. agricultural system. Since the 1980s,
large food retailers have increasingly pur-
chased directly from a shrinking number
of grower-shipper conglomerates. By
2004, 20 food retailers controlled more
than half of retail grocery sales in the
nation. Walmart alone accounted for 19
percent of all grocery sales, giving a single
company extraordinary power over the
prices paid to producers.
The number of fast food and cafete-
ria restaurant chains are also consolidat-
ing. For example, A&W, KFC, Taco Bell,
Long John Silver’s, and Pizza Hut are allowned by Yum Brands!, which contracts
with Unified Foodservice Purchasing Co-
op to supply produce for all their restau-
rants. For this reason, every tomato
purchased by Taco Bell comes from a sin-
gle food broker, who buys tomatoes from
just five or six growers. This arrangement
allows a small group of produce buyers to
dictate prices for the entire U.S. market,
forcing many small farmers out of busi-
ness and keeping wages paid to migrant
crop pickers artificially low. In Florida
alone, the number of tomato farms
dropped 38 percent during the five years
between 1992 and 1997. Today, the top
10 Florida growers ship 70 percent of all
tomatoes sold in the United States.
With this kind of power, charge
industry critics, supermarket chains,
food-service conglomerates and whole-
salers can demand rock-bottom prices,
often negotiating prices with growers
prior to planting. These pre-purchase
agreements short the risk to growers,
who view labor as the only expense they
can control. Growers claim that a short-
age of legal workers willing to do farm
work “forces” them to hire illegal immi-
grants, whose fear of deportation often
stops them from challenging the low
wages and poor living conditions. An
example of this downward wage pressure
can be seen in wages paid to tomato
pickers. In 1980, they earned minimum
wage by picking just over seven buckets
of tomatoes. By 1997, pickers had to fill218 ATLAS OF HISPANIC-AMERICAN HISTORY
Unauthorized, 53%
Citizen, 25%
Legal permanent resident, 21%
Other work authorized, 1%Employment Eligibility of Agricultural Workers in the U.S.
Images (top and above) from a 2007
farmworkers rights march on the
headquarters of Burger King. (Photos
by Alan Pogue)