Internal Conflicts

Despite the broad support for a program of contract labor voiced by political representatives such as the Farm Bureau Federation, the benefits of the bracero program were unevenly distributed among categories of agricultural enterprise. The major labor supply organizations, such as the Western Growers Association and the San Joaquin Valley Labor Association, were heavily dependent on the financing and support of the largest and most prosperous agribusiness firms. During the period from 1942 to 1951, when these associations directly supervised the recruitment and distribution of Mexican workers, they sought first to meet the needs of their most powerful members and, in the process, often left smaller firms waiting for labor while their crops baked in the sun (interviews with retired vegetable grower, 1979). In some cases, large growers abandoned the labor supply associations when the latter could no longer respond quickly enough to fluctuating demands for labor. Furthermore, during this period employers were expected to advance expense money to cover the recruitment, allocation, and transportation costs of braceros (Majka and Majka, 1982:143–145). For many smaller employers, cash was a scarce commodity and the additional debt burden ate into profit margins.

When the federal government took over the role of principal administrator of the bracero program in 1951, problems in the distribution of labor were reduced (Galarza, 1964:156–171) but the cost-effectiveness of bracero labor remained tilted in favor of larger employers. Since the market price of

fruits and vegetables reflected both the low cost of Mexican labor and the economies of scale accruing to large producers, small enterprises found themselves in a bitter struggle for survival. As Mandel (1968:chap. 5) points out in his analysis of profit margins in agriculture, the returns to investment in the least productive unit are forced to a minimum and the returns for more efficient units are thus inflated. More concretely, as in the earlier case of farmers faced with market prices reflecting the cost of Chinese labor, the income of the small producer barely exceeded that of the labor force. Given that the larger firms also exercised greater leverage in determining the prevailing wage (Fuller, 1955), the bracero program amounted to an even larger subsidy for agribusiness.

In addition to the disparities in benefit accruing to sheer size, the competition among firms in the same industries continued. That is, despite the appearance of harmony among employers when it came to issues of labor supply, the construction of the bracero program did little to enhance cooperation among firms in the marketplace. In most industries, particularly those engaged in the production of "fresh-market" or "consumer-market" commodities, the cutthroat character of competition hardly abated. While industry representatives and employers interviewed during the course of this study alluded occasionally to efforts by some companies to disrupt or misdirect orders for braceros from their competitors (as a way to foul up their harvesting schedules), much more common were efforts to succeed through effective price competition. Thus, even with fairly regularized supplies of labor at predictable wage rates, market competition between and among large and small producers expanded.

In an effort to compete successfully in the marketplace and thereby increase their share of sales, many of the larger firms undertook aggressive marketing strategies. One particularly significant approach undertaken by a number of producers of fruits and vegetables was forward integration to the market. This strategy was often accompanied by a move to diversify production—both to provide a broader range of fruits and vegetables to buyers in terminal markets and to balance

overall profits to the firm (see Fredricks, 1979, for a case history of one successful diversified producer who followed this strategy).

Forward integration and diversification offered opportunities for growth, but even the largest firms were incapable of affecting prices or, for that matter, withstanding the impacts of highly volatile markets. Hence, the profitability of agricultural production and survival in the market for even the largest firms could not leave untouched the problem of increasing the productivity of labor. But here the advantages of the bracero program began to break down. Most important, as these larger firms sought to diversify and extend their production over time and space, the bracero program became more of a constraint than an advantage: (1) the limited work certifications of braceros meant they had to be replaced at intervals, necessitating the retraining of workers and the added expenses of transportation; (2) the uniformity and level of product quality—a factor of great importance to firms seeking to establish a reputation in the market—fluctuated as workers were cycled through their tenure in the fields; and (3) the potential for increased productivity of field labor was thwarted both by the nature of the system itself (i.e., the provision of undifferentiated and largely inexperienced labor) and by the lower levels of commitment to be expected from coerced or semicoerced laborers.

The degree of constraint felt by different enterprises undoubtedly varied and, without detailed analyses of work organization during this period, it is quite difficult to assess how a cross section of firms responded. However, interviews with several lettuce growers (to be discussed in greater detail in chapter 4) indicated that it was recognized that an alternative source of labor was necessary. Specifically, employers seeking to contravene the legal limitations on braceros turned to an equally accessible, if virtually unregulated, labor pool: undocumented workers. In contrast to braceros, undocumented workers had no legal protections and were subject to harassment by police and border authorities. They were, paradoxically, a more flexible labor supply than braceros: un-

documented aliens were not limited by work certifications and could be trained in a broader range of activities (or, at least, made to achieve consistency in product quality).

Additional evidence about the role of undocumented workers which is provided by Galarza indicates that indocumentados were not only an important alternative source of labor but that they were often used to fill positions requiring greater skill than braceros (1964:30, 57–62, 69–71). Before and during the life of the bracero program,

Braceros found the Wetbacks as anxious to please as they were willing to endure. From among them the employer selected the more able workers for tasks requiring skill, such as irrigating and truck driving. They became differentiated from the common run of illegals, serving in specialized operations and becoming stable, regular employees. The employer would make unusual efforts to keep them and to arrange for their return if by chance they were picked up by the Border Patrol. (1964:30)

These workers, often referred to as "specials," acquired a status above that of the bracero or "stoop laborer" in large part because they were multifunctional:

As the Wetbacks spread from crop to crop and area to area, they proved adept and useful in many farming operations besides stoop labor. They became handy men, irrigators, pruners, tractor drivers, sorters and pickers. In these and other tasks the lower wages they accepted made them a favored lot. Employers chose experienced illegals and sought to prolong their employment by more than customary precautions against arrest. (Galarza, 1964:59)

The attraction between specials and large employers was mutual: (1) the bigger firms offered greater anonymity as well as implicit protection from deportation—they were rarely raided by the Border Patrol; (2) large employers offered longer-term employment, thereby reducing the amount of exposure (which accompanied the job search) undocumented workers experienced, and allowing greater potential earnings for individual workers; (3) those firms more often required

a substantial number of relatively skilled workers (e.g., for pruning vines, irrigating, and spraying fields); and (4) many of those firms were the ones engaged in efforts to integrate forward to the market, placed greater emphasis on high levels of consistent product quality, and, therefore, placed a premium on a stable and experienced labor force.

While reliable data on the composition of the harvest labor force are not available, it is clear that even during the height of bracero importation—roughly 1955–1959 (Galarza, 1964:79)—undocumented workers constituted a sizable fraction. Besides their utility as a source of labor to fill the gaps created by the inefficiencies of the bracero program (Majka and Majka, 1982:142–146), however, indocumentados (and specials, in particular) filled an important need that braceros could not: they could be hired, trained, and used to fill important positions for which braceros, by virtue of the program itself, were unsuited. Thus, as I argued at the outset of this chapter, changes in the structure of agricultural enterprises were initially fueled by the availability of low-cost, managed labor; with efforts in increase market share leading to concerns with product quality and productivity, however, the bracero program came to represent a limiting factor. The search for an alternative to the highly regulated bracero led to the undocumented special.