Wrap Crew Production
Approximately one-fifth of the lettuce shipped from California and Arizona is sent out enveloped in plastic film (Drossler,
1976). Known as "wrapped" or "source-wrapped" lettuce, it is the product of a labor process that differs in several respects from the ground crew organization. Two of the most important differences are: (1) the capital intensification of production, and (2) the restructuring of the harvest labor process.
The wrap machine (fig. 4) and its auxiliary equipment mark a significant increase in the capital intensity of lettuce harvesting. The machine itself consists of a steel frame with hinged wings capable of being folded back for highway transport. The entire device is powered by a large diesel (tractor-type) engine with auxiliary motors for generating electricity. Electrically powered conveyor belts are mounted on the wings and the center section of the machine for moving lettuce between work stations. Hydraulic lifters and steering mechanisms enable the wheels of the machine to be driven
Figure 4.
Diagram of General Wrap Machine Design (Top View)
independently, thus allowing the contraption to move through damp fields and make turns in a short radius.
Individual machines cost in the neighborhood of $75,000 to $100,000 each—approximately the price of the largest and most powerful generation of tractors. Variations in price are largely due to differences in design. Some companies purchase their frames from machine manufacturers and then make modifications in their own engineering shops. Besides the machine itself, auxiliary equipment in the form of special trailers for transporting machines between production areas, forklifts for handling palletized cartons, and spare parts boosts the investment necessary to transform production from naked to wrapped lettuce. Given the fact that two machines (Zahara et al., 1974) are necessary to replace the output of one ground crew, investments approach nearly a quarter of a million dollars per ground crew equivalent. Thus, in contrast to the minimal hand tools necessary to outfit the ground crews, wrap machines constitute a sizable increase in fixed costs.
Altogether, only nine firms produce source-wrapped lettuce. Of those nine, the top three, which are also the three largest firms in the industry, account for somewhat between one-half and two-thirds of wrapped lettuce.[4] Miracle Vegetable Co., the industry leader, wraps roughly half of its lettuce; Salad Giant wraps nearly 40 percent; and Verde wraps between 30 percent and 40 percent (interviews with company representatives). In those firms committed to production of wrapped lettuce, therefore, the increase in fixed costs associated with the machine is a major investment. For Miracle alone, the investment in equipment, not including increased investments in maintenance and repair facilities or design shops, approaches $2 million.[5]
The second major element of change in the labor process is the elimination of the critical element of skill found in the ground crew: mutual coordination. In effect, the machine appropriates the mutual coordination of ground crew members while leaving in place many of the activities they previously performed. Workers still cut, pack, and load lettuce but now a machine regulates the pace and coordinates the
performance of those activities. Therefore, the mutual coordination and experience of the ground crew has been reproduced mechanically as a set of motor-driven conveyor belts.
Like the industrialization of automobile production some sixty years earlier, wrap machine technology has had important consequences for the social organization of production (Chinoy, 1955; Braverman, 1975; Marx, 1975:375–409). First, the elimination of the coordination and skill of the ground crew cutter has transformed the cutter on a wrap crew into a sort of detail worker. Cutters are trained to perform a single, repetitive task. Individual workers in a wrap crew, like the individual workers on the line in an auto assembly plant, need not even have a passing acquaintance with fellow crew members or their work in order to perform adequately. The orientation to the parts but not the whole of the labor process, though not produced by a subdivision of work activities, contrasts sharply with the social cohesiveness and the orientation to the whole of the ground crew. Second, the pace of work has been subordinated to mechanical control, like an assembly line. The volume of lettuce arriving at any one of the work stations is manipulated externally by supervisory personnel. Thus the pace of work is less affected by the actions of any particular category of workers than by the speed of the machine and its conveyor belts. Finally, the pay rate for wrap machine workers has been converted from a piece-rate to an hourly basis. Thus, the variability and the high level of wages which had characterized different crew positions and different crews in the ground pack has been replaced by a flat, hourly wage structure.
These changes, in turn, have important implications for the social organization of the harvest crews. First, while the wrap machine process does not eliminate any of the individual activities carried out by ground crew workers it does, however, increase the demand for labor. Since two crews of thirty-three workers (and two machines) are necessary to replace one ground crew, the volume of labor needed is nearly double (table 5). However, the wage of the average worker is reduced to less than half what workers can make on the piece-rate.
When the premium paid to growers for wrapped lettuce is added to the total, the wrap-pack method proves quite competitive with the ground-pack method. Second, the elimination of crew-based coordination and the reduction in wages have also undercut the basis for worker commitment to crew and company. Although wrap machines are deployed on a continuous basis, the reward from commitment has been reduced in two important aspects: (1) the connection between crew experience and earnings has been replaced by an hourly wage that is largely unaffected by experience; and (2) the low level of wages discourages migration with crew and company. In other words, in addition to deskilling the crew and enhancing mechanical control of work pace, the transformation of the labor process has actually increased the seasonal demand for labor.
This chapter has made several important distinctions with respect to the social and economic organization of production in the lettuce industry. First, the industry has been transformed from a collection of economically vulnerable enterprises into a system dominated by a small set of highly complex and sophisticated organizations. Second, these organizations continue to employ a largely noncitizen labor force; despite the process of rationalization that has taken place at higher levels within those firms, the bulk of production is carried out by low status, unprotected labor. Finally, production is carried out in highly labor-intensive harvest teams. Even more important than the volume of labor required, production is characterized by both highly skilled and self-regulating production teams and lesser-skilled, mechanically paced crews.
With this examination as background, the organizing questions seem all the more important. How do these firms get such valuable labor at so low a cost? How is the stability and regularity of labor supply maintained?