California's Farm Labor Market

This report examines California's farm labor market. It reviews the characteristics of farm employers, analyzes trends in farmworker employment, summarizes what is known about who does farmwork, and examines the operation of the farm labor market. After this substantial amount of background, several farm labor issues are reviewed: unions, migrancy, farmworker housing, and immigration reform. California's farm labor market is marked by an apparent overall stability in the number of farm employers and jobs for hired workers. Since 1960, from 35,000 to 40,000 farms have hired an average 190,000 to 220,000 workers. However, this apparent stability masks important changes in the farm labor market: -Farm employment and wages remain concentrated on the 6,000 largest farms, but in recent years more wages have been paid through intermediaries such as labor contractors. -Farmworker employment numbers have remained stable because labor-intensive agriculture expanded and created new jobs as fast as mechanization eliminated jobs. -Farmworkers today are mostly immigrants born in Mexico who first come to the United States between the ages 18 to 30. About 40 percent are migrants: Some migrants cross the U. S. border seasonally; some follow-the-crops within California; and some do both. -Most farmworker recruitment is through friendship and kinship networks, meaning that a foreman or labor contractor obtains additional workers by recruiting on or two key workers, and then gaining access to their friends and relatives. -Wages for California fieldworkers average over $5 hourly or $175 weekly, but there is considerable variation around these averages. These hourly and weekly wages are above the minimum wage levels, but most farmworkers earn only $3,000 to $6,000 annually because of frequent spells of unemployment. -Collective bargaining has had limited impacts on the farm labor market. Union activity under the 1975 Agricultural Labor Relations Act resulted in sharp wage increases between 1979 and 1981, but sustained union impacts on wages, fringe benefits, and working conditions have not been felt statewide. -The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 imposes sanctions or fines on employers who knowingly hire illegal alien workers, offers a special amnesty for farmworkers, and establishes programs to admit legal alien farmworkers. Immigration reform and demographic trends promise to increase labor costs in agriculture, although the amount of the increase will depend on how large the temporary worker programs become.