Glass half empty for US vineyards as migrant policy bites
Scott Osborn’s vineyard certainly bears no signs of being swept up in a perfect storm. Perched on a grassy knoll with expansive views of Seneca Lake, Mr Osborn’s 50 acres of vines produce wines so fine they include a riesling served at Barack Obama’s second inauguration lunch.
But a perfect storm is indeed how Mr Osborn sees the situation confronting him, 250 miles north of New York City – one that is challenging America’s wine industry. Donald Trump’s inauguration
‘There are tons of jobs here, just no one to do them’
as president, he believes, has only made the situation worse.
“It’s incredibly aggravating to be a small business owner in this country right now,” said Mr Osborn, founder and owner of Fox Run Vineyards in Finger Lakes, and president of the New York Wine Industry Association. At the heart of his problem is a labour shortage. On Wednesday Mr Trump announced his support for a plan to cut legal migration by half – a proposal which has dismayed the wine industry.
Stephen Miller, Mr Trump’s senior adviser, unveiled the plan. “Every year we issue a million green cards to foreign nationals from all countries of the world, but we do so without regard to whether that applicant has demonstrated the skill that can add to the US economy, whether they can pay their own way or be reliant on welfare, or whether they’ll displace or take a job from an American worker,” he said.
Green card holders will no longer be able to bring their families to America, beyond young children and spouses. Priority will be given to highly skilled workers who already speak English.
With the wine industry overwhelmingly reliant on migrant labour, mainly Mexican, the announcement was bad news for producers like Mr Osborn.
The troubles began under Mr Obama, who, unbeknown to many, was such a fierce proponent of deportations of migrant workers that his cabinet had to beg him to slow down.
“And, of course, everything that Obama did Trump has to do 10-fold,” said Mr Osborn.
America runs on immigrant manpower to such an extent that last month the Trump administration moved to expand the H-2B visa programme for short-term seasonal work, saying it would offer an additional 15,000 visas because American workers were unwilling or unable to fill the country’s employment needs.
Among the businesses requesting visas for foreign workers was Mr Trump’s Mar-a-lago estate, and his Florida golf course. The visas do not, however, allow agricultural workers. Vineyards have to try another route. And among them: the Trump Vineyard Estates, owned by Eric Trump, the president’s second son.
The company initially applied for six foreign workers in December. Two months later, the company applied for 23 more, under the H-2A scheme for agricultural workers.
H-2A workers and US workers in corresponding employment must be paid a certain rate. To apply, employers have to say they have been unable to find American citizens to fill the jobs. At least three other local vineyards also applied to hire foreign workers. Mr Osborn has not gone down the H-2A route; the paperwork involved is immense, and for his scale of vineyard he says it is not feasible.
Instead, he is having to invest thousands of dollars in mechanisation. For other producers that is not an option.
“Ten or 15 years ago, it was easy to get 20 or 30 people to work for the harvest in one phone call,” he said. “Then Obama got in. I made a phone call, needed 20 people, and I got two. The requirements for working are so strict that many migrants give up and go home … they may be green card holders, but they still feel vulnerable and absolutely do not want to be arrested, so they don’t go out.”
Mr Trump’s fierce anti-migrant rhetoric, he said, has made the situation worse. And Tom Cotton, an Arkansas senator who in February introduced the Reforming American Immigration for Strong Employment (RAISE) Act, said the idea that Americans would not fill the labour shortage was “a lie”.
Stephen Miller underscored this on Wednesday, stating: “How is it fair or right or proper that if, say, you open up a new business in Detroit, that the unemployed workers of Detroit are going to have to compete against an endless flow of unskilled workers for the exact same jobs?”
But Mr Osborn sees this as oversimplistic. Yates County, in which his vineyard and 30 others sits, had some of the highest unemployment in New York state 30 years ago. With the influx of wineries, unemployment plummeted and stands at just 3.8 per cent.
“There are tons of jobs here,” he said. “Just no one to do them.”
Mr Miller countered, saying on
‘How is it fair that the unemployed of Detroit are going to have to compete against unskilled workers for the exact same jobs?’
Wednesday: “Bringing in low-skilled labour is based on the idea that there’s a labour shortage for lower-skilled jobs. There isn’t.”
He should perhaps speak to Aaron Lange, who tells a similar tale from the other side of the country.
For five generations Mr Lange’s family has been growing grapes in the Lodi region, 100 miles inland from San Francisco. Seven or eight years ago he had “tons” of people applying for work. But the labour shortage is now so acute, he says, it may in the long term force the price of wine to increase.
“A couple of years back I was so frustrated I posted fliers all over town, in English and Spanish, offering jobs,” he said. “And maybe 12-15 people showed up. Of those, there were perhaps four I considered hiring.
“This is farm work. No one is on the minimum wage, but it’s tough – there is far easier work. It’s not like: ‘You’re an unemployed American? Do this job.’ It doesn’t work like that.”
He added: “We need sensible agricultural policies. We will simply not fill our needs from Us-born citizens.”
And he was sceptical about the H-2A programme. “It’s a very broken system,” he said. “It’s riddled with liability and there is a lot of red tape. There are many, many nightmare stories of how it has backfired – workers arrive 20 days too late, or employers are sued over some obscure fault. We have a huge disconnect from the land in the US. And it’s very tough to remedy.”
The wine industry is demanding comprehensive immigration reform.
But Michael Kaiser, vice president of Washington DC industry lobbyists Wine America, said the Trump administration was not interested.
“The current H-2A worker visa is really not very user friendly; it has to be the same people every year, and you have to provide accommodation where they are working. We want a more robust guest-worker scheme,” he said. “Congress is perhaps more receptive than the Trump administration, because they see the problem that lies ahead.
“If, all of a sudden, your $7 bottle of wine costs $11, then people will start to notice.”