The North Bay’s wine industry greatly depends on an immigrant workforce—one that will be heavily affected by any sort of reform.
“We have met the enemy and he is us.”
—Pogo the Opossum (Walt Kelly 1913-1973)
Walt Kelly’s declaration by his beloved cartoon character, Pogo, was Kelly’s most famous marsupial utterance. In all fairness, the statement was more of a conservationist’s manifesto than a comment on the fickle nature of the American public. Pogo’s statement, however, has modern applications that ring true in the 21st century. Take immigration reform, for example.
Washington, D.C. (and most of the hemisphere) was set abuzz earlier this year when both the Senate and the House of Representatives passed legislation that would alter the way we view immigrants, migrant workers and their families in this country. Neither bill found support in their opposite chamber, but both bodies vowed to revisit the issue later this year. The gauntlet was thrown down, and it sent shockwaves throughout United States businesses.
A brief look into the mechanics of both bills tells why. The House’s bill, HR 4437, was by far the more draconian. Placing a heavy emphasis on protecting the borders, the bill contained several controversial proposals. Among other ambitious goals, HR 4437 called for building a 700-mile border fence to close off places highly trafficked by illegal aliens as gateways to El Norte. The bill called for employers to assume the task of electronically verifying all workers’ legal status; prohibited grants to any federal, state or local governments that “enact or maintain sanctuary policies;” created a timeline for implementation of border checkpoints; and mandated deporting all illegal aliens now living in the country, some 11 to 14 million people, depending on the numbers you use.
The Senate bill, the kinder and gentler of the two, was better received—but not by much. Senate bill 2611 also called for fortifying the borders, but added a path to legality that illegal aliens and others could follow in the form of a guest worker program, a provision that doomed it in more conservative circles in the House. The bill, like HR 4437, called for a fence (although a shorter one) and deployment of National Guard troops along the border as an enforcement tool for state governments. It also upped the ante on employers who employ illegal aliens to $20,000 and three years in prison after establishment of a national electronic database.
One could argue that, since the two bills were put down due to internecine squabbling among our elected officials in Congress, the moment has passed and it’s back to business as usual. Most businesses, however, both the industrial behemoths of the world and the small mom and pop concerns on street corners across the land, would beg to differ. Legislators cognizant that 2006 is an election year will undoubtedly make good on their promise to revisit the issue before the end of their sessions.
Hitting home
What does immigration reform mean for North Bay Wine Country employers who rely heavily on foreign agricultural workers? In interviews regarding this topic, sentiments range from mild exasperation to outright disbelief and anger. All agree the issue will not go away and will cause severe backlash throughout the industry along both monetary and humanitarian lines.
Nick Frey, formerly executive director of the Sonoma County Grape Growers Association, is now president of the newly formed Sonoma County Winegrape Commission. His position gives him insight into the lives of both growers and the massive foreign workforce they employ. Asked about industry repercussions if a significant portion of their workforce were forced to leave the country, he’s quick to reply. “I’d guess it would be significant. The last census placed the Hispanic population at around 25 percent of the county’s population. I assume not all of them are legal.”
Even so, Frey notes many other legal workers are in the region for 10 months a year and then return home for two months before returning to work in the United States. He thinks these workers might not show up on census rolls, which makes the number of Hispanics contributing to the North Bay economy hard to estimate at any given time. “It’s obvious they affect every part of our economy,” he says. “We just don’t know for sure how much. I don’t think you can tell.”
Currently, employers are required by law to ensure workers meet minimum governmental requirements through personal documentation. Frey questions the accuracy of the current system, noting the rise in counterfeit Social Security cards being used by illegal aliens.
“New legislation would make it mandatory for employers to check and verify the status of workers,” Frey explains. “Until some system like that is put into place, it’s easy for illegal aliens to find employment. In general, I’d like to see something simple that made it possibble for workers to come and go legally and gave them the opportunity for citizenship so they could get credit for the taxes they pay. There’s a lot of tax money being paid by illegal aliens.”
According to Frey, migrant workers are an important source of labor, not only for the agricultural industry but also the country’s economy as a whole. “If Congress did anything drastic [like deporting illegal aliens], we’d be in trouble pretty quickly.”
The wine industry, Frey adds, values the migrant workforce for obvious reasons. Their knowledge and skills have been honed over years—in some cases, generations—of hands-on experience. Plus, they do a job that most Americans consider too hard and physically demanding for the wages paid. Frey notes that, in many cases, the public is mistaken about the income possibilities attached to some field jobs.
“The minimum wage is somewhere around $9 for an experienced worker and goes up to $15 to $20 for equipment operators. First line supervisors get even more,” he says. “The motivation for employing Hispanic workers isn’t to obtain a cheap source of labor but an experienced one that gets the job done.”
Residual effects
Frey expects to see some form of legislation passed by Congress soon that will require employers to become the policing arm for the government. A law of this nature would place the burden of proof as to workers’ legality squarely on the shoulders of employers, a dynamic that would place a barrier between the two.
“It seems like Congress is blaming immigrants for the current situation,” Frey says. “In fact, Congress hasn’t dealt with the problem. [Our immigration system] hasn’t worked in 20 years.”
When asked if the wine industry could survive if illegal aliens were barred from the fields, Frey is guardedly optimistic. “Could we survive? It would require forced mechanization of traditionally hands-on farming practices. You’d then have to deal with how that would be viewed by the public.
“A lot of wineries claim to make handcrafted wines, and that would have to end,” he explains. “My guess is we would still make high-quality wines, but the mystique surrounding our premium wines would suffer.”
The mechanization alternative is being mulled over by grape growers and winery owners alike. Frey doesn’t believe mechanization to be the best solution but admits it’s one that must be considered in light of coming immigration reform.
“I think mechanization would ultimately save money,” he says. “Unfortunately, there aren’t enough products [or technologies] being made right now to cover everyone’s needs. [In the short term], the process would be disruptive, but eventually, costs would go down for everyone, not just the vineyards.”
The two failed Congressional bills called for fining employers who hire undocumented workers. Frey sees increasing fines as problematic, in part because they place the employer at risk for lawsuits from the very workers who are the source of the problem. When a company lays off or fires a worker, Frey reminds us, the employer has a legal responsibility to justify his actions; otherwise, the employee has grounds for legal action.
“Unless there was some type of immunity from legal action for the employer, there could be problems,” Frey says. “As to fines, we would have to clean up our payrolls to eliminate anyone with questionable documents. Some businesses might have to change how they obtain a labor supply—get someone else to do their hiring—to shield them from potential problems. If you’re in business, you have to make a profit. [Fines] would probably be too costly for repeat offenses.”
Frey says, in the case of immigration reform, our region’s reliance on the wine industry is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, the wine business is very lucrative. Yet vineyard owners are enmeshed in a symbiotic relationship with the Hispanic community, which contains both legal and illegal workers. There’s no agricultural alternative, he says, that landowners could turn to that would eliminate this reliance.
“I suspect the majority of growers and wineries are sympathetic to the plight of their workers. The people I know really value their employees,” Frey says. With more stringent immigration reform, however, the value of an employee becomes a moot point. “Without verifiable documentation, you won’t be employed.”
Employee value
Andy Beckstoffer, grape grower and owner of Beckstoffer Vineyards in Napa, owns and farms vineyards in Lake, Napa and Mendocino counties. His is the largest family-owned, non-corporate business in the area. Beckstoffer began his career in the wine industry four decades ago and understands the value of his employees, both homegrown and those who come here seasonally to work the fields.
When asked what, if any, impact the immigrant population has on the agricultural businesses operating in the Napa Valley, Beckstoffer is unequivocal. “They do all of the work,” Beckstoffer says with a laugh. “They’re the only workforce available. There’s no other group in the area that can or will do these jobs. Most Americans won’t do this kind of labor.”
Asked about the immigration reform measures taken up by Congress earlier this year, Beckstoffer is critical of any legislation that would make the area’s immigrant workforce pay a punitive price for performing what he sees as a valuable service to the economy without offering a chance to correct their illegal actions.
“The House of Representative’s bill was ridiculous,” he says. “We’re not going to send 14 million people back home by passing a bill that makes them felons. We don’t have enough jails to hold them all. And it’s not just the wine industry that will suffer. If they pass legislation [of this nature], the construction industry will be hurt as well. New Orleans would be dead in the water.”
Beckstoffer notes that, while a vast majority of the foreign workforce employed in the wine industry is documented and living legally in the area, the future loss of a significant number of workers due to harsh immigration standards would be a devastating blow to area businesses.
“These are the only workers we have to do the jobs,” he emphasizes. “We can’t mechanize fast enough to replace them. Besides, many of their jobs can’t easily be mechanized, like the work done on hillside vineyards.”
In a more positive vein, Beckstoffer is optimistic when talking about the Senate’s approach to immigration reform. “People who opposed the Senate bill call it amnesty,” he says. “It’s not. Their bill was more of a ‘work out’ program that let those who are already in the country meet certain goals to become legally documented. They would have to learn English, pay back taxes and have and keep a job. It’s not really amnesty at all.”
Beckstoffer also lays the blame not on the migrant workers or wine industry businesses, but on the laissez faire attitude adopted by the United States government over the years in regard to the issue of immigration.
“We’re all partially to blame. We’ve let this situation happen for our own best interests,” Beckstoffer says. “It began with [government-supported] guest worker agreements, like the Bracero program that began in the 1940s and ran through the 1960s.”
In the past, Beckstoffer says, employers were required to check workers’ Social Security cards to ensure they had proper documentation before putting them on the payroll. That would change, regardless of whether reform follows the harsher profile of the House of Representative’s bill or the less restrictive tenets of the Senate’s proposal, he observes. One thing is certain, he adds, employers will take on a much more active role in verifying their workers’ status as either legal or illegal in the future.
Ultimately, Beckstoffer says, more workers will be barred from the vineyards—a situation he believes will do nothing to alleviate the underlying problem. “You can build all the fences you want, but if there’s work here, they’ll get over the fences.”
Beckstoffer says he understands the government’s desire to secure United States borders in light of the terrorist threat. He doesn’t, however, understand the Federal government’s sudden urgency to restrict immigration in a manner that will adversely affect nearly every household in the United States.
“The agricultural issue is very important, but we aren’t the biggest group that will be affected,” he says. “Both the construction and hospitality industries will [feel the effects]. Prices will go up, directly affecting the consumer.”
Building community
Teresa Foster’s 16-year career as an immigration consultant gives her a unique insight into the plight of the Hispanic workers and their community that exists in the region. Born in Mexico, she married an American citizen and followed her own path to citizenship. Today, she helps Mexican immigrants understand how to legally live and work in the region. Her work has fostered an understanding of the thinking and motivation behind the workers and their families’ desire to remain in the country legally.
“My Hispanic clients care deeply about the land and the people for whom they work,” Foster says. “In many instances, it’s become a generational care that’s passed down from parents to children.”
Beyond the controversy over the plight of undocumented workers, Foster says, lies an important economic incentive for ensuring the vitality of the region’s Hispanic population. “[Over the years] we’ve seen our economy boosted in the valley by the presence of a thriving migrant population,” she explains. “More Latinos living and working here means more sales for area businesses. These are families who want to build a future here and become a part of the community. If they didn’t want to live in the area, they’d take their money home and buy houses in Mexico. City governments and businesses understand this and want them to be a part of our community.”
Not only are the workers buying homes and other large ticket items, like cars and appliances, she continues, they’re also loyal consumers, often referring family and friends to the businesses they find sensitive to their needs. Consequently, she believes, many immigrant families are deeply entrenched in the community’s life and fabric. This, she says, makes the problem of immigration reform not one that will respond to an outside/in approach, but one that needs to be addressed from within to deal with issues created by outside pressures on the community.
“Many of our migrant workers live here legally 12 months out of the year,” Foster says. “Others would like safe passage home and the ability to return to work, but fear that returning will be too hard [or impossible].”
Too many times, Foster has heard the heartbreaking stories of Mexican wives and children whose husbands and fathers came to the United States for good paying jobs. At season’s end, the men are virtually captive in the country, afraid to return to Mexico because of the risk of losing the wages their families so desperately need to survive. Too often, she says, women and children are the ones who place their lives in jeopardy to cross the border in the hope of reuniting their family. This fact alone, she says, only compounds an already untenable situation.
“Who else will stand all day in the sun caring for the grapes? The wine industry is important for both sides, not just the workers,” Foster says. “They both need each other to survive. These people know the earth, the grapes and the art of harvesting. We’ve taught them the right way [to farm], and they feel proud of their work. They believe they’re part of the wine they help create.” And they’re right.
Foster is doubtful the current immigration proposals being considered by Congress offer a viable solution to the problem. She sees the potential for steps that might be used to determine eligibility to work in this country to create obstacles that reduce the number of qualified workers. If and when that occurs, she believes the problem will be exacerbated rather than cured.
“People who don’t qualify will have to leave the country or go back to the shadows,” Foster fears. “It will force them to work under the table for low wages and increase the chance of their being taken advantage of by employers.”
Hard labor is good to find
Duff Bevill of Healdsburg knows well the value of his workers and his need for their services. His company, Bevill Vineyard Management LLC, oversees 1,000 acres of prime vineyard land in Sonoma County. He’s been farming in the area for the past three decades and agrees immigration reform isn’t an issue that lends itself to a quick fix. He also questions the wisdom of legislators who’d take a slash-and-burn attitude toward the issue.
“Immigrant workers fill a void, not just in agriculture but in other areas of the economy—just take your pick,” he says. “Just about any sector in America that’s wage-driven will feel the effect.”
Bevill recalls an old San Francisco Chronicle survey that concluded American workers look for status in the jobs they accept and place emphasis on the title of the position rather than the work involved; farm work was close to the bottom of that list. And that, he believes, is the crux of the immigration reform problem.
“The idea that we have a migrant workforce coming and going each year is a misconception,” he says. “I have people who work for me who’ve lived in Sonoma County for 20 years and own homes here. Here in Sonoma County, employing migrant workers generally only happens during harvest, which is our busiest time of the year.”
Bevill says two core groups make up the foundation of workers living in Sonoma County. One group, about 90 percent of his workers, live in the area all year; the other 10 percent come and go with the season. Still, he says, it’s wrong for Americans to believe everyone who comes to the United States to find work wants to stay for the rest of their lives.
“It’s a wrong assumption to believe everyone who comes here comes for citizenship,” Bevill explains. “I have many workers who have no desire to be citizens. They have no intention of staying, but come for the work and then return to their own homes and farms back in Mexico.”
He sees the recent spate of immigration reform bills in Congress as merely posturing by politicians who should well know that workers, both documented and undocumented, are a “huge part of our workforce that winds throughout the entire fabric of our economy.”
“What we need for our workers is a gold standard by which they can show proof of employment and that they aren’t a burden on our welfare system,” Bevill says. “Right now, we’re required by law to only inspect documents. If they have them, we assume they’re OK. But we really don’t know.”
Bevill says grape growers and winery owners generally viewed the demonstrations that occurred during the recent immigration reform debate sympathetically. He does think some of the demonstrators made a mistake early on by flying Mexican flags in marches—an error, he notes, they didn’t make during subsequent demonstrations.
“I think [owners and growers] recognize [immigrants] play an important part in the industry, and we have to work together,” Bevill says. “We gave our workers the opportunity to attend the rallies if they wanted to go.”
Bevill sees the immigration reform conundrum as a multi-tiered problem that, if brought to a negative conclusion, would cause far more problems than fixes.
“If Congress is dumb enough to hunt down 12 to 14 million undocumented workers [and deport them], other issues besides who’s going to fill the labor gap are going to come up,” he says. “What if growers start losing crops because there aren’t enough workers to bring in the harvest?”
If that were to happen, Bevill continues, he can envision people losing their farms, opening up land use issues that could embroil entire county governments in litigation. “Would those lands be subdivided? Would open space be threatened? What would be the impact on the agricultural community? The effect could be devastating. It would certainly kill the agricultural business in California.”
Further ramifications
Legal ramifications surrounding immigration reform are no less troubling for employers and their employees. Bob Anderson is managing partner of Lanahan & Reilley, LLD, of Santa Rosa and has deep personal and professional ties to the wine industry. The negative impact of immigration reform, he says, would be felt throughout the region.
“I’m convinced our migrant workforce and their families are an important part of the economic viability of this area,” Anderson says. “It would be an all-out disaster if we lost them. I think they’re critical to the work we do here.”
Anderson views the current immigration crisis as unfortunate for all concerned. He thinks the efforts of our elected officials would better serve our region—and our economy—by taking a more diplomatic tact.
“I’m a strong believer in open borders,” he explains. “We all agree it’s important to secure our borders from terrorists. This administration, however, would better serve the needs of all Americans if they sat down with the Mexican government and negotiated, like they did on NAFTA, to set up an open border policy in exchange for a worker’s program that’s to everyone’s advantage.”
Anderson fears that, if employers are forced by the government to carry out verification of workers’ legal status, an adversarial relationship may develop between employees and their bosses that never existed before. “The government’s intention to create an enforcement program to get rid of illegal aliens is a plan I don’t think will work,” he notes. “What it will do is create an even larger market for those who make illegal documents.
“From a policy point of view, Congress would better serve the American people by figuring out ways to supplement states to provide better [social and medical] services for the workers. This would get rid of the main objection to the illegal alien problem by dealing with the reality of the situation.”
Teresa Cunningham is chair of the employment law group in the Napa firm of Gaw Van Male, Smith, Myers and Miroglio. Her duties include employment law and resolving labor-related disputes. Cunningham believes a reliable immigrant workforce is essential to the region’s economic viability. It’s been her job to help clients comply with existing labor laws as they navigate the murky waters of immigration forms and other supportive documents that workers present. Until now, she says, the onus has been on the employee to supply documents that prove their legal right to work. If Congress shifts that responsibility to the employer, it could create a difficult legal situation.
Currently, she says, if documents presented to the employer (like a Social Security number) are questionable, the employer must notify the employee without making a judgment about the documents and allow the employee time off to resolve the issue.
“Under the proposed reform bills, the employer will be responsible for verifying application identification,” she explains. “The employer’s burden will be compliance with the law, without overstepping the employees’ rights or privacy concerns. That’s the challenge now and in the future—compliance versus protection of the employees’ rights. It’s a Catch-22.
“Unless the government includes provisions that allow employers latitude to inquire into the employees’ affairs, the employer would be at risk of breaching privacy concerns.” Proposed rules essentially negate the employees’ right to privacy and place the employer in a position of culpability, open to being sued over privacy issues.
Cunningham says most employers want to comply with the law and will always do the right thing. More stringent legislation, however, will further strain an already precarious intermingling of government control, employer needs and the rights of immigrant workers. The devil, as always, is in the details.
She says, “The challenge and real question for everyone is, how clear is the law? Second, how will the employer and employee relationship change? Finally, how hard will it be to comply with the new law?”
Cunningham believes harsher immigration laws will naturally lead to employers being more adamant about workers’ documents complying with the law. This, she thinks, could lead to an “attrition of the workforce” as undocumented workers are forced out due to non-compliance. She sees it as a ticking time bomb that could have severely negative impacts on the region and the economy.
“This is a very complex and difficult issue to decide to take one side or the other,” she says. “The challenge for the government is to craft a credible plan that won’t offend or alienate any pocket of people or make the employer’s job too difficult. There isn’t an easy answer. This is an issue interwoven into who we are—a land of immigrants.”
A quality outcome
President of the board of directors of the Napa Valley Grape Growers Association (NVGGA) and co-owner of Snowden Vineyards, Randy Snowden has a vested interest in the immigrant workforce that lives in the region; his business depends heavily on a robust migrant labor force.
Noting that Hispanic residents of Napa County represented 35 percent of the overall population in the most recent census, Snowden believes their impact on the region is unquestionable. Many of those living in the county, he says, are legal residents, some even second-, third- and even fourth-generation families.
“These are people who’ve become a part of the community,” Snowden says. “Our workers are skilled laborers, many of whom live here year-round. If they weren’t here, there’d be no one else to do the job.”
Besides the resident workers, he continues, there are other groups that come to the region to find work. His business, like everyone else’s, needs extra help at harvest and other select times. And though, Snowden says, he’s relied on the same vineyard management company to provide a year-round workforce since 1982, traditionally employers rely on friends and relations of full-time workers to fill such positions. Only secondarily do they turn to itinerant workers who come for a season then move on or to contract laborers who are brought in by companies to fill seasonal jobs.
“I think some of these people are without legal documentation, but right now, employers have specific regulations on what they can accept as documentation—like I-9 forms [Employment Eligibility Verification], a Social Security or Green Card. That’s all they need. I think very few people hire workers without them. If you work with local labor or a vineyard management company, you work with the same crew all year. They know your vineyard and understand what you’re trying to do. You get a better quality product. Many of our workers and the extra help we hire are related or come from the same region in Mexico.”
Snowden says because of the premium nature of the wines produced in his region, the bar is placed relatively high as to who gets hired: “Many of our workers have worked together for months or years. You don’t want just anyone in your vineyard.”
Entry-level wages can begin between $10 and $12 per hour, he says, but economics aside, he fears strict immigration reform will have a negative effect on the industry, both for those at the top and at the bottom of the pyramid.
“Our economy is dependent on a group of people working hard to make a living for themselves and for their employers’ profit,” Snowden explains. “Now we’re saying we have an immigration problem? Dogma and xenophobia are driving the boat. If there were no more workers, it would be a disaster. We would be forced to use pass-through labor, and that won’t work either.”
“The national government needs to secure the border,” Snowden says. “After that, anyone who’s worked here for years in good faith, we need to make a fast track for them to become legal. Our economy is built on theirs. We’ve built a system, and now Congress wants to take it back down. This is a humanity issue.”
Pete Richmond of Silverado Farming Company, who sits on the NVGGA board with Snowden, agrees that the region’s dedication to creating quality wines influences the quality of the workers drawn to the valley. “I think our workers and their culture are vital to our community,” Richmond says. “Napa has a relatively small migrant workforce because we keep people working 11 months out of the year. As a result, we have a fairly stable workforce that sets us apart from other areas of the state.”
He goes on to say that, like any highly skilled workforce in the economy, he and other employers put a premium on educating and retaining their employees. “This is a job you don’t learn in a season.” Consequently, his company has a fairly rigorous screening process that workers must undergo before they’re hired. Still, Richmond believes more could be done at the federal level to alleviate problems associated with the immigration debate, rather than merely sending everyone home.
“I would love to see the government create a national database for everyone,” he says. “You’d be able to punch in someone’s information—we should all be doing that—and have an immediate response. You can’t ask the employer to wait around several days or a week. We would lose the ability to get our work done.”
Richmond also agrees that amnesty isn’t a cure for the current situation but rather an impediment to solving the issue. “Amnesty solves nothing,” he explains. “If we do the same thing as in 1986 [Immigration Reform and Control Act] without giving us the ability to check documents, we’ll be right back here in the same place in 10 years.”
Studies completed in the late 1990s seem to back up Richmond’s claims. Many academics and government leaders believe the 1986 act, rather than stopping illegal immigrants from coming to the country, actually increased the number of illegal aliens when family and friends of those given amnesty crossed the border to be reunited with their loved ones.
Richmond believes some measure of reform is inevitable. But he says there are certain provisions that must be met if the process is going to be effective and fair for all parties. First, he believes the employer must have the means to effectively verify a worker’s legality at the time a person applies for a job. Second, immigrants working and paying taxes must have a path to becoming legal and thereby be able to draw out the money they contribute to the system.
“We have to have these guys, and it’s up to us to help them,” Richmond says. “It’s critical to the quality of product we’re trying to produce.”
Unfortunately, when viewed from the current dilemma of immigration reform, Pogo’s declaration, “We have seen the enemy, and he is us,” seems apropos. Sadly, no matter what type of reform is finally passed, Congress and our legislators will come off looking like staunch defenders of the homeland. The people in the fields and those who employ them will feel the pain of Congress’ handiwork. The damage will not only be counted solely in monetary loss, but in our respective cultures and hearts as well.
