May Day boycott had minimal economic impact
May Day boycott had minimal economic impact
Growers, packers and shippers of fresh produce, who in many cases rely heavily on immigrant labor, potentially could have been the most severely affected by the nationwide boycott planned for Monday, May 1.
Organizers of the boycott, held in conjunction with rallies around the country in support of legalizing undocumented immigrants, hoped that the boycott, which they billed as "a day without immigrants," would hit American businesses in the pocketbook and make them realize how important the immigrant population is to the U.S. economy. The organizers urged immigrants, both legal and illegal, to not go to work on May Day and to make no purchases.
According to government estimates, there are about 12 million immigrants in the country illegally, including as many as 8 million workers, many of whom work in agriculture and allied industries. While federal law makes it illegal for employers to knowingly hire an illegal immigrant and requires them to ask for proof of legal status, the law also forbids employers from challenging any plausible documentation presented to them by a prospective employee.
Most industry leaders surveyed by The Produce News cited a minimal economic impact from the May Day boycott. While experiences varied, in many cases employers simply had their crews work an extra day on the weekend and then gave them Monday off. Where the workers were needed on Monday, it appears that most of them did show up, although many went to the rallies after work. There were few instances in which a produce operation suffered because of workers not coming to work when they were asked to do so.
"We had to adapt," said Joel Nelsen of California Citrus Mutual, an industry association representing citrus growers. "I give a lot of credit to our industry employers in that they didn't want to make this awkward on their employees. We are an industry that works 10- and-a-half months a year. Many of these people reside in the area, and they were under tremendous pressure [from their peers] to participate if at all possible. So what we did is we collectively surveyed them, found out what their desires were, and if necessary worked an extra day over the weekend, and then gave them Monday off.
"This caused some disruption with our customer base to be sure," Mr. Nelsen continued. "Certainly [the] transportation of our product was affected." But most field crews and packinghouse workers "were requesting time off" and were accommodated. Conversely, "if the workers wanted to work a normal schedule, we certainly accommodated them in that way as well. Bottom line, I don't think the industry [felt] a dramatic economic impact," he continued. It was "more of a management disruption, so we just worked around it."
It is "somewhat ironic," Mr. Nelsen observed, that industries such as agriculture "that are working most feverishly to achieve some sort of a compromise solution in Washington" to the immigrant labor issue "were in fact potentially the greatest victims of this boycott, and that is a bit frustrating."
Also ironically, the rallies and boycott may have "created some polarization" that will make achieving a compromise on the issue more difficult, he said.
Barry Bedwell of the California Grape & Tree Fruit League said, "Overall, you could characterize the situation as having a minimal impact on our members' operations." There are three reasons for that, he said. First, the season was just starting and very few operations "were picking or packing fruit." Second, many employers "planned ahead and [were] in communication with their workers," so that in many cases, where field crews were needed, they worked Sunday and took Monday off, he said. Third, in the Fresno area, the rally was scheduled for late in the day so that workers could put in a day's work and still go to the rally.
"But in hearing from our people, they certainly wanted to be supportive of the effort, and overall it sounds like there was minimal disruption," he said.
Tom Russell of Pacific International Marketing in Salinas, CA, said that for his company and for "pretty much everybody I talked to, it was the same story." The boycott was "pretty much a non-event. Mr. Russell continued, "Probably there were more guys working Sunday" than there have been in a long time. "The fields were pretty much shut down Monday." Some workers "wanted to work, but they just felt there was a lot of peer pressure not to," he said. "So we worked hard on Sunday." PIM did keep its shipping facilities open on Monday, however. "Those people all showed up, and we shipped a normal day. We had a room full of product from Saturday and Sunday, so from a field-harvest side, it didn't affect us at all, other than a little overtime on Sunday."
"We didn't work" Monday, said John Killeen of NewStar Fresh Foods LLC. "We had no harvest or production. ... We shut down for the day." With harvesting operations in Salinas and Oxnard, "we tried to work ahead as best as we possibly could to allow the workers to go to the rallies."
"We actually picked on Sunday," said Bill Moncovich of California Giant Inc., a strawberry company in Watsonville, CA. The company did have one ranch in Oxnard "that we didn't quite finish" on Sunday and asked the workers to come Monday morning and finish. "Five people showed out of 300," he said. But that seems to have been a rare exception.
In Nogales, AZ, Lee Frankel of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas, which represents marketers and distributors of produce from Mexico, said he did not notice "any changes here in Nogales within the industry itself." Nogales sits on the Mexican border, and some businesses in town that cater to Mexican shoppers closed early, he said. But that was because May 1 is a national holiday in Mexico, "their Labor Day," he said. "It didn't affect any of the distribution operations."
In Los Angeles, where an estimated 400,000 mainly Mexican immigrants attended rallies downtown, many of the smaller retail chains and independent markets closed for the day on May 1, as did many of the wholesalers and distributors about town.
"We were in here" for about half a day, said Bill Vogel of Tavilla Sales Co. of Los Angeles, which is located just off the Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Market. But "we made arrangements to have all our crews off. They worked on Saturday because they wanted Monday off. ... Our guys asked to be off ahead of time and just made up the work. We were fine."
Many other produce houses in the area simply closed for the day, he said.
"For our experience here, as far as personnel went, I had total attendance," said Rick Montoya of Giumarra Bros. Fruit Co. on the L.A. market. "But as far as customers go, it was a very slow day. A lot of the buyers that come down to the market physically are related to the independent Hispanic retail grocery stores. From what we understand, the majority of those did close for the day," as did many foodservice businesses. "So sales were next to nothing" on the market.
As to the shipping business in the Giumarra companies, he said, there was "very little negative effect" and there were "no disruptions" in the work force.
Titi Perez of Ramirez Bros., which is also located on the L.A. market, said that like most other houses on the market, Ramirez Bros. was open on May 1 but "didn't have much business." Normally, the company has sales of $160,000 to $200,000 on a Monday, he said. "We didn't even sell 10 percent of that." That was because most of the local supermarket chains in the Los Angeles area, which are "our main customers," had closed for the day. The Seventh Street Market and the Ninth Street Market closed completely for the day, as did many produce houses and venders in the market district, he said.
John McClung, president of the Texas Produce Association, said, "There was quite a bit of activity in Texas, predominantly north of us in the big cities like Dallas and Fort Worth, but in the Rio Grande Valley, there was not a lot of activity. Bottom line is, to my knowledge, there is no lasting effect on the Texas produce industry."
He added, "I have not had a single member tell me one thing one way or another about it. We didn't get the response in Texas that you saw in L.A. and Chicago and the East Coast. The Hispanic organizers had best get control of their public relations. If they want to see immigration reform pass the U.S. Congress, they had better revise their approach to doing things, because marching [and] waving Mexican flags or singing a revised anthem in Spanish is hardening the opposition in Congress to a guest worker program. There is no question about it."
He continued, "I met with Henry Bonilla, a Hispanic congressman from Texas. It is increasingly difficult to get a sympathetic ear in the Congress for immigration reform. This kind of demonstration is causing that. I am increasingly dubious that we will get immigration reform. I think the Senate will come out with a bill, but I do not think it can pass muster when it goes to conference committee with the House, and a big part of this is because the Hispanic community has overplayed its hand with these demonstrations, with demands that illegals be treated as citizens. The likely end result legislatively is, we won't get immigration reform this year, which would be a shame."
Elliott Buchanan, who handles produce transportation at Cargo Transportation Services Inc. in Tamarac, FL, said, "We did have quite a few things that were affected. We saw some effects down in south Texas. Loads weren't ready because they didn't have the manpower to load the trucks up, which cut in half the product they were taking out compared to what they normally do. Loading times [were] a lot longer, waiting times [were] a lot longer, but a lot of people were understanding because we all appreciate what immigrant workers do for the country, especially in this industry. You have to be appreciative of it."
Paul Bowling, vice president of operations at Borders Melon Co. Inc. in Edinburg, TX, said, "There was effect on our business on the receiving end on some of the East Coast warehouses. I guess they had a shortage of folks, but as far as our procedures down here, it was business as normal. I believe it was a non-event."
Lloyd Rosen, vice president and marketing director at William Manis Co. in Plant City, FL, said, "On the receiving end, we had all kinds of problems. For instance, trucks came in on Monday morning and there wasn't enough labor to get them unloaded, so the trucks had to hold over, which prompted irritated truck brokers, drivers insisting on being compensated for the layover, and product which lost a day of shelf life. Take an item like corn. The corn growers have a promotional quantity of corn that needs to be moved now, and delaying one day is a very substantial matter to them."
He added, "The biggest hurdle we face in issues like this is simply the case of principle vs. practical. In the world of academia, principle is the most important, and in the blue-collar world, practical is the most important, and that is where the issue really lies."
Matthew D'Arrigo, vice president of D'Arrigo Bros. Co. of New York in the Bronx, NY, said, "We had a pretty quiet morning from about 9 o'clock on. My particular feeling is that the way the whole system works with retail inventories from people to buy from and foodservice inventories for people to buy from, I don't believe there was any missed business. If there was, it was minimal. We had a quiet day, but it probably was made up for the next day a little bit and the night before a little bit. You work around that kind of a thing. If it had lasted more days, then it would have started to have had an impact, a realistic impact. But just one day, I think people can work around those things. It was a little slow, but we are back to normal."
Carlos Zambito, marketing director for the McAllen Produce Terminal Market Owners' Association in McAllen, TX, said, "About one-third to 40 percent of my 115 tenants shut down in solidarity. Most of the tenants are Mexican growers, and so obviously quite a few of them shut down, but at the same time, there were people who couldn't shut down because if you are receiving a load, you have to be open. But [there was] no real economic impact because people that didn't buy that day either bought the day before or the day after."
He added, "Some of the produce companies were affected not by what was done here but by what happened across the border. A couple of demonstrations were done right on the border on the bridge, and they slowed and stopped the traffic for a few hours. Obviously that affected not only the market but all of the produce business and anybody that receives merchandise that comes from Mexico."
(Joel Gebet contributed to this article.)
Organizers of the boycott, held in conjunction with rallies around the country in support of legalizing undocumented immigrants, hoped that the boycott, which they billed as "a day without immigrants," would hit American businesses in the pocketbook and make them realize how important the immigrant population is to the U.S. economy. The organizers urged immigrants, both legal and illegal, to not go to work on May Day and to make no purchases.
According to government estimates, there are about 12 million immigrants in the country illegally, including as many as 8 million workers, many of whom work in agriculture and allied industries. While federal law makes it illegal for employers to knowingly hire an illegal immigrant and requires them to ask for proof of legal status, the law also forbids employers from challenging any plausible documentation presented to them by a prospective employee.
Most industry leaders surveyed by The Produce News cited a minimal economic impact from the May Day boycott. While experiences varied, in many cases employers simply had their crews work an extra day on the weekend and then gave them Monday off. Where the workers were needed on Monday, it appears that most of them did show up, although many went to the rallies after work. There were few instances in which a produce operation suffered because of workers not coming to work when they were asked to do so.
"We had to adapt," said Joel Nelsen of California Citrus Mutual, an industry association representing citrus growers. "I give a lot of credit to our industry employers in that they didn't want to make this awkward on their employees. We are an industry that works 10- and-a-half months a year. Many of these people reside in the area, and they were under tremendous pressure [from their peers] to participate if at all possible. So what we did is we collectively surveyed them, found out what their desires were, and if necessary worked an extra day over the weekend, and then gave them Monday off.
"This caused some disruption with our customer base to be sure," Mr. Nelsen continued. "Certainly [the] transportation of our product was affected." But most field crews and packinghouse workers "were requesting time off" and were accommodated. Conversely, "if the workers wanted to work a normal schedule, we certainly accommodated them in that way as well. Bottom line, I don't think the industry [felt] a dramatic economic impact," he continued. It was "more of a management disruption, so we just worked around it."
It is "somewhat ironic," Mr. Nelsen observed, that industries such as agriculture "that are working most feverishly to achieve some sort of a compromise solution in Washington" to the immigrant labor issue "were in fact potentially the greatest victims of this boycott, and that is a bit frustrating."
Also ironically, the rallies and boycott may have "created some polarization" that will make achieving a compromise on the issue more difficult, he said.
Barry Bedwell of the California Grape & Tree Fruit League said, "Overall, you could characterize the situation as having a minimal impact on our members' operations." There are three reasons for that, he said. First, the season was just starting and very few operations "were picking or packing fruit." Second, many employers "planned ahead and [were] in communication with their workers," so that in many cases, where field crews were needed, they worked Sunday and took Monday off, he said. Third, in the Fresno area, the rally was scheduled for late in the day so that workers could put in a day's work and still go to the rally.
"But in hearing from our people, they certainly wanted to be supportive of the effort, and overall it sounds like there was minimal disruption," he said.
Tom Russell of Pacific International Marketing in Salinas, CA, said that for his company and for "pretty much everybody I talked to, it was the same story." The boycott was "pretty much a non-event. Mr. Russell continued, "Probably there were more guys working Sunday" than there have been in a long time. "The fields were pretty much shut down Monday." Some workers "wanted to work, but they just felt there was a lot of peer pressure not to," he said. "So we worked hard on Sunday." PIM did keep its shipping facilities open on Monday, however. "Those people all showed up, and we shipped a normal day. We had a room full of product from Saturday and Sunday, so from a field-harvest side, it didn't affect us at all, other than a little overtime on Sunday."
"We didn't work" Monday, said John Killeen of NewStar Fresh Foods LLC. "We had no harvest or production. ... We shut down for the day." With harvesting operations in Salinas and Oxnard, "we tried to work ahead as best as we possibly could to allow the workers to go to the rallies."
"We actually picked on Sunday," said Bill Moncovich of California Giant Inc., a strawberry company in Watsonville, CA. The company did have one ranch in Oxnard "that we didn't quite finish" on Sunday and asked the workers to come Monday morning and finish. "Five people showed out of 300," he said. But that seems to have been a rare exception.
In Nogales, AZ, Lee Frankel of the Fresh Produce Association of the Americas, which represents marketers and distributors of produce from Mexico, said he did not notice "any changes here in Nogales within the industry itself." Nogales sits on the Mexican border, and some businesses in town that cater to Mexican shoppers closed early, he said. But that was because May 1 is a national holiday in Mexico, "their Labor Day," he said. "It didn't affect any of the distribution operations."
In Los Angeles, where an estimated 400,000 mainly Mexican immigrants attended rallies downtown, many of the smaller retail chains and independent markets closed for the day on May 1, as did many of the wholesalers and distributors about town.
"We were in here" for about half a day, said Bill Vogel of Tavilla Sales Co. of Los Angeles, which is located just off the Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Market. But "we made arrangements to have all our crews off. They worked on Saturday because they wanted Monday off. ... Our guys asked to be off ahead of time and just made up the work. We were fine."
Many other produce houses in the area simply closed for the day, he said.
"For our experience here, as far as personnel went, I had total attendance," said Rick Montoya of Giumarra Bros. Fruit Co. on the L.A. market. "But as far as customers go, it was a very slow day. A lot of the buyers that come down to the market physically are related to the independent Hispanic retail grocery stores. From what we understand, the majority of those did close for the day," as did many foodservice businesses. "So sales were next to nothing" on the market.
As to the shipping business in the Giumarra companies, he said, there was "very little negative effect" and there were "no disruptions" in the work force.
Titi Perez of Ramirez Bros., which is also located on the L.A. market, said that like most other houses on the market, Ramirez Bros. was open on May 1 but "didn't have much business." Normally, the company has sales of $160,000 to $200,000 on a Monday, he said. "We didn't even sell 10 percent of that." That was because most of the local supermarket chains in the Los Angeles area, which are "our main customers," had closed for the day. The Seventh Street Market and the Ninth Street Market closed completely for the day, as did many produce houses and venders in the market district, he said.
John McClung, president of the Texas Produce Association, said, "There was quite a bit of activity in Texas, predominantly north of us in the big cities like Dallas and Fort Worth, but in the Rio Grande Valley, there was not a lot of activity. Bottom line is, to my knowledge, there is no lasting effect on the Texas produce industry."
He added, "I have not had a single member tell me one thing one way or another about it. We didn't get the response in Texas that you saw in L.A. and Chicago and the East Coast. The Hispanic organizers had best get control of their public relations. If they want to see immigration reform pass the U.S. Congress, they had better revise their approach to doing things, because marching [and] waving Mexican flags or singing a revised anthem in Spanish is hardening the opposition in Congress to a guest worker program. There is no question about it."
He continued, "I met with Henry Bonilla, a Hispanic congressman from Texas. It is increasingly difficult to get a sympathetic ear in the Congress for immigration reform. This kind of demonstration is causing that. I am increasingly dubious that we will get immigration reform. I think the Senate will come out with a bill, but I do not think it can pass muster when it goes to conference committee with the House, and a big part of this is because the Hispanic community has overplayed its hand with these demonstrations, with demands that illegals be treated as citizens. The likely end result legislatively is, we won't get immigration reform this year, which would be a shame."
Elliott Buchanan, who handles produce transportation at Cargo Transportation Services Inc. in Tamarac, FL, said, "We did have quite a few things that were affected. We saw some effects down in south Texas. Loads weren't ready because they didn't have the manpower to load the trucks up, which cut in half the product they were taking out compared to what they normally do. Loading times [were] a lot longer, waiting times [were] a lot longer, but a lot of people were understanding because we all appreciate what immigrant workers do for the country, especially in this industry. You have to be appreciative of it."
Paul Bowling, vice president of operations at Borders Melon Co. Inc. in Edinburg, TX, said, "There was effect on our business on the receiving end on some of the East Coast warehouses. I guess they had a shortage of folks, but as far as our procedures down here, it was business as normal. I believe it was a non-event."
Lloyd Rosen, vice president and marketing director at William Manis Co. in Plant City, FL, said, "On the receiving end, we had all kinds of problems. For instance, trucks came in on Monday morning and there wasn't enough labor to get them unloaded, so the trucks had to hold over, which prompted irritated truck brokers, drivers insisting on being compensated for the layover, and product which lost a day of shelf life. Take an item like corn. The corn growers have a promotional quantity of corn that needs to be moved now, and delaying one day is a very substantial matter to them."
He added, "The biggest hurdle we face in issues like this is simply the case of principle vs. practical. In the world of academia, principle is the most important, and in the blue-collar world, practical is the most important, and that is where the issue really lies."
Matthew D'Arrigo, vice president of D'Arrigo Bros. Co. of New York in the Bronx, NY, said, "We had a pretty quiet morning from about 9 o'clock on. My particular feeling is that the way the whole system works with retail inventories from people to buy from and foodservice inventories for people to buy from, I don't believe there was any missed business. If there was, it was minimal. We had a quiet day, but it probably was made up for the next day a little bit and the night before a little bit. You work around that kind of a thing. If it had lasted more days, then it would have started to have had an impact, a realistic impact. But just one day, I think people can work around those things. It was a little slow, but we are back to normal."
Carlos Zambito, marketing director for the McAllen Produce Terminal Market Owners' Association in McAllen, TX, said, "About one-third to 40 percent of my 115 tenants shut down in solidarity. Most of the tenants are Mexican growers, and so obviously quite a few of them shut down, but at the same time, there were people who couldn't shut down because if you are receiving a load, you have to be open. But [there was] no real economic impact because people that didn't buy that day either bought the day before or the day after."
He added, "Some of the produce companies were affected not by what was done here but by what happened across the border. A couple of demonstrations were done right on the border on the bridge, and they slowed and stopped the traffic for a few hours. Obviously that affected not only the market but all of the produce business and anybody that receives merchandise that comes from Mexico."
(Joel Gebet contributed to this article.)
