March 28, 2024

Where Have All the Workers Gone?

Sept. 21, 2014

The dramatic decrease in northern Michigan’s migrant worker population in recent years can be attributed to many factors, but, regardless of the reasons, there is no question this trend could change the face of the region’s signature fruit industry, making the way we harvest cherries, wine grapes, apples, peaches and berries a thing of the past.

Increasingly uncertain harvests, lack of housing, low wages, post-9/11 immigration policy, and a new generation that wants something better than the tough life of the traveling farm worker have all been cited as reasons for the shift.

"I can’t tell you how frustrated we are. It could mean the end of it," said Christi Bardenhagen, whose family runs a 186-acre farm near Suttons Bay that produces cherries, strawberries and blackberries. Bardenhagen and others like her are increasingly frustrated by the President’s and Congress’s inability to reform immigration policy. "Apple growers just plain don’t have any workers. I don’t know what they’re going to do."

PART OF THE FABRIC

Migrant farm workers, particularly from Mexico, have been a part of the fabric of northern Michigan life–socially and economically–for over 100 years, but particularly since the mid-20th century with numbers peaking in the mid-1960s.

B.J. Christenson grew up on a farm that first saw migrant workers in its fields during World War II through a program that addressed a wartime labor shortage.

Christenson, a member of a League of Women Voters Leelanau County task force examining migrant labor in the region, said she believes many don’t appreciate their work.

Apples, peaches, and strawberries, in particular, are delicate and need to be handpicked.

"It’s very difficult work and many times, other than the growers, people don’t seem to appreciate the fact that we have people who are hand-harvesting all of the fruits and vegetables that you are seeing in the grocery store," Christenson said. "People treat them as though they’re invisible. Other than the farmers, I don’t know anyone who ever says, "˜Thank you for harvesting our fruit and keeping our prices low.’" While one of the smallest of the 83 counties in the state, Leelanau County ranks fifth in migrant worker population. Christenson said the current labor shortage has already changed the area’s fruit industry.

"I guess the only thing I can say is more growers seem to be changing their crop strategies, switching from one crop to another, because of a lack of laborers: skilled, qualified people who show up everyday."

MECHANIZATION

Bardenhagen’s farm was established five generations ago when Johan Bremer returned from the Civil War eligible for a 160- acre land grant.

Bardenhagen said she has seen lots of changes in her lifetime.

"The first reason we started losing our help was because of mechanization, now it’s because of immigration," she said. "It used to be that you always had, in the spring of every year, families stopping by and looking for work. Now that doesn’t happen at all."

While many crop’s harvesting processes were mechanized in the last century, northern Michigan’s migrant worker population was particularly affected by the widespread introduction of the mechanical trunk cherry shaker in the 1970s.

At one time, workers traveled from Texas to Indiana in the spring to plant tomatoes. From there, they came up to northern Michigan in the summer for the fruit harvest and then returned to Indiana for the tomato harvest.

"All that tomato work became automated and they had less reason to come up north," Bardenhagen said. "If there’s not enough work all along the way, people stop doing it."

PAY WHEN IT RAINS

The labor shortage has led many northern Michigan orchards and vineyards to turn to a federal program that supplies foreign workers through a temporary agriculture visa called an H2A. Through this program, farmers must pay for transportation to and from Michigan, provide benefits and pay a prevailing wage.

For employers, the advantage is guaranteed workers. The downside is the cost and the paperwork involved.

For the workers, the program guarantees good wages, benefits and housing, but it restricts them to working on just one farm.

Gladys Munoz, a medical interpreter and migrant worker advocate, said she believes farmers could solve their labor shortage if they offered H2A-type pay and benefits to documented workers who are already in the country.

"Why can’t it be for your own workers? Give them decent housing. Give them health benefits. And pay for days that it’s raining," Munoz said.

She said pay and housing are big factors that keep migrant workers away from northern Michigan.

Carla Wojtal, workforce development specialist at Telemon Corporation, agreed. Telemon provides job training and assistance to migrant workers.

"If the grower doesn’t have his own housing, then it’s really hard to find affordable rental housing for the family," Wojtal said. "That’s been a huge impediment to coming up here."

Housing is so limited for migrant workers in the region that there is evidence of scarcity even in years when there is a shortage of workers. Wojtal knows of one family who lived in Frankfort and commuted nearly 25 miles to a farm near Empire, making a long day of physically demanding work that much longer.

STILL SUFFERING FROM 2012

Another reason the current labor shortage is so pronounced is the crop failure northern Michigan experienced in 2012, said Wojtal.

The failed cherry harvest of 2012 signaled to migrant workers that the region – among the farthest out of the way for traveling workers – might not be worth the trip. "There wasn’t work two years ago and a lot of people came up and they immediately had to leave," Wojtal said. "They aren’t taking the risk to come up here again."


GENERATIONAL SHIFT

Another trend squeezing the migrant labor supply is that many children of migrant workers today want better, less disrupted, less unpredictable lives than their parents and grandparents.

To this end, Wojtal said Telamon helps people find training, either in agriculture or in another industry.

"What we would like to do is either upgrade a farm worker’s skills or assist them to get out of farm labor, if that’s what they want," Wojtal said.

Recently, Wojtal helped children of migrant families who settled in northern Michigan bolster their agricultural skills. She is helping a 22-year-old woman who someday

wants to own a vineyard get accepted to a viticulture program. She also recently met with two young men, ages 19 and 23, who work in an orchard, but have dreams of owning a hops farm.

IMMIGRATION REFORM WANTED

Immigration is a divisive political topic and one that could play a huge role in tipping the balance of governmental power this November.

Setting aside the politics of the issue, current federal and state immigration policy is yet another reason there are fewer migrant workers available to harvest the region’s crops.

Bardenhagen believes immigration policy should be reformed to include a guest worker program that would make it easier for skilled laborers to enter the country and follow the harvests from region to region.

Others want reform to go further. "Our immigration law is completely dysfunctional and that is why many, including the Catholic Church, have been calling for comprehensive immigration reform," said Father Wayne Dziekan, a priest with the Diocese of Gaylord who has worked with the migrant community for 14 years.

Dziekan said he doesn’t want reform that merely enables workers to enter the country and then go back to Latin America. He believes reform must give migrant workers a path to citizenship.

"Ultimately, there has to be a solution found at the national level for this issue in order to best ensure that we have agricultural workers and families who aren’t being torn apart," said Marian Kromkowski, who has also worked on the League of Women Voters task force. "In order to have workers come, they of course need to feel comfortable. They need good housing. They need good pay."

THE CHILL OF ICE

The League of Women Voters Leelanau County first decided to look at migrant labor in 2012 amid a wave of anti-immigrant laws passed in some states. Arizona, Alabama, Georgia, Indiana and South Carolina had passed "show me your papers" laws that required police to demand proof of legal status. It was thought that these laws would potentially reduce the number of migrant families willing to travel throughout the United States. At the time, Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents were conducting sweeps in Michigan.

"When we were doing the 2012 study, there was a lot more action by ICE," Kromkowski said. "They called them enforcement actions. I called them raids. There was a lot of concern."

ICE enforcement has been quieter over the past two years and the department has issued public statements saying it no longer targets illegal immigrants unless they are discovered in the course of a criminal investigation.

Some migrant workers still live in fear, however.

Dziekan, who works with immigrants who have been detained, said he knows of roughly 20 instances this season where an immigrant has been detained in northern Michigan to face a deportation hearing.

"I can say for sure I am getting more and more calls for help from people in extreme circumstances," he said.

"The thing is, it doesn’t appear in the news," Munoz said. "People are taken and their family members are left behind and they are in desperation."

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