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Waverly, Minnesota, might seem like an unlikely place to find a business with a global diversity of workers to rival a United Nations conference. But here they are.
Each growing season, workers from Ukraine, Mexico, South Africa and sometimes other countries make their way to Untiedt’s Vegetable Farm, an hour west of the Twin Cities, to help plant seedlings, tend to plants and harvest produce.
The workers aren’t American citizens, but they are here legally; they have H-2A visas, a temporary permit that allows people from other countries to do seasonal agricultural labor in the U.S.
The program is growing in Minnesota. Between 2011 and 2015, the number of H-2A workers requested by Minnesota companies more than doubled, from 512 to 1,177 (data include only approved applications). That’s small compared to the more than 8,000 requested in California in 2015, but it’s a number that could continue to grow as demographic change empties rural areas of Americans willing and able to do agricultural work.
Hard work, good pay
Mariana Pykivska, 28, recently arrived in Waverly from Vinnytsia, Ukraine, to work at Untiedt’s for the seventh year in a row.
Pykivska’s home for the summer is a small white house near the Untiedts’ home. Employers are required to provide housing to H-2A workers, free of charge, and transportation to and from their home country. Eight Ukrainian guest workers share this three-bedroom, two-bathroom house, which is outfitted with a kitchen and laundry machines. There’s a flower box full of zinnias on the front steps and a vase with peonies on the table.
Pykivska first came to the farm as a student in an exchange program in 2011.
“I came here just graduated (from university). You don’t know particularly what you want to do. It was hard for me to find a good job in Ukraine,” she said. “There was this chance to go abroad. I said I’ll just try it,” she said.
The next year, she was invited back to work as an employee, and has returned every year since.
For her, the work is about accomplishments — passing a driver’s exam, meeting new people, learning new things. When she first came, she could understand English better than she could speak it. Now, conversation is much easier.
She spent her first year in the greenhouses and fields, planting and weeding. In recent years, her job has been to work the farmers markets.
“You work hard, (but) you get paid enough,” she said. In Minnesota H-2A workers are paid a minimum of $12.75 an hour, a rate called the Adverse Effect Wage Rate, which is set by the federal government.
Working at that rate for the season is enough for he and others to live off of for the rest of the year when they return, said Alexander Oleksandruk, 34, who picks up odd jobs back home to supplement that income.
Then, there’s a cultural exchange aspect of the program, too. Oleksandr Sudoma, 29, learned new techniques to grow raspberries in Minnesota, which he brought back to Ukraine, where crop-tending techniques tend to be less sophisticated than in the U.S. He and his brother now run a raspberry business together back home.
The relationship between the farm and its foreign guest workers is a symbiotic one, but it probably wouldn’t exist without shifting demographics, which in turn, have changed economics.
Not enough workers
Forty some years ago, when the Untiedts started their business, they didn’t need foreign farm workers. At the time, they had no trouble finding locals who could work seasonally to help out on the farm.
“We had college students, teachers who had their summers free, retired but not tired people, all kinds of very available local help,” said Jerry Untiedt.
But as demographics have morphed the population of this part of the state — families are smaller and many young people have filtered out of rural counties in favor of the big city — that’s changed, he said.
Right now in Minnesota, there’s only about one available worker for every open job, and in places like Wright County, where Untiedt’s is located, a 3.7 percent unemployment rate means it’s hard to find workers willing to do the tough work required in agriculture.
That’s true in many parts of the state, said Bill Blazar, senior vice president of public affairs and business development for the Minnesota Chamber of Commerce, who said his group’s Grow Minnesota program visits around 800 companies across Minnesota each year.
“And 70 to 80 percent of them tell us that their number one concern is workforce, being fully staffed,” he said, adding that in addition to a fully functioning immigration system, Minnesota needs to find a way to tap underemployed populations, like refugees and ex-offenders, in order to fill needed jobs.
When it comes to farm work, it’s just not the type of jobs Minnesotans want to do anymore, especially in a job market like this, Untiedt said.
“It’s not an issue of compensation, it’s an issue of mores and personal habits and exposure growing up,” he said — fewer and fewer are growing up with a farming background.
Employers are required by law to post publicly any jobs for which they are considering H-2A workers. And they’re required to hire any Americans who qualify.
“I had my first application in three years this year. The people aren’t out there,” he said.
About 15 years ago, Untiedt’s began using the H-2A program. Now, the company is one of the biggest requesters of H-2A visa holders in the state, with about 80 H-2A employees this year.
Unlike other types of temporary foreign worker visas, such as H-2Bs for nonagricultural workers and H-1Bs for high-skilled tech workers, there’s no cap on the number of H-2A workers the U.S. grants each year.
That doesn’t mean farmers have as many as they want. In parts of the country, farmers are hoping the Trump administration eliminates barriers to hiring H-2A workers: delays caused by paperwork, they say, and regulations make it difficult to get workers efficiently.
In Minnesota, perhaps the biggest barrier to using H-2A workers is the overtime requirements, Untiedt said. Minnesota is one of a few states that requires employers to pay H-2A workers overtime, in Minnesota’s case, time-and-a-half if they work more than 48 hours in a week.
His H-2A employees, who are used to working long weeks, want more hours, he said (workers MinnPost talked to agreed), but he can’t afford all the overtime.
Untiedt is the director of the Minnesota Growers Coalition, a group of about 30 farms advocating for a legislation to remove the overtime requirement. A bill that would have done so died in committee this legislative session, but the group hopes to pass it in the future.
Those opposed to such legislation say removing overtime protections would constitute taking advantage of the guest workers.
“We have to be balanced and we have to consider the dignity of all people who are here in our state and who we want to be looked upon and respected,” Sen. Bobby Joe Champion, DFL-Minneapolis, told MinnPost in March.
But with the overtime rules, Untiedt says his farm is pretty much maxed out on the number of H-2A workers he can hire.
“When we figure our actual production costs, what it costs to have one of these workers here, they’re somewhere between $18.50 and $19.50 an hour,” Untiedt said. That includes housing and transportation costs.
Growing numbers
Still, the number of H-2A workers in the state is growing, mirroring national trends.
Gloria Bostic, a foreign labor certification coordinator for Minnesota’s Department of Employment and Economic Development, said the number of applications for H-2A workers is rising all the time. A few years ago, less than 60 employers applied, Department of Labor data show. In 2016, the number was over 100.
“I’m getting new H-2A employers all the time, every year. They kind of start talking to their neighbors — what’s the process, what’s the cost, all that kind of stuff. Is it worth it? Is it cost-effective?” Bostic said.
The state’s biggest applicants for H-2A workers in 2016 were Bailey’s Nurseries, just southeast of the Twin Cities, Riverview LLP, near Morris, and Untiedt’s. Bailey’s did not respond to a request for comment and Riverview declined to comment for this story.
The majority of Minnesota H-2A workers’ jobs are in nursery and greenhouse jobs, followed by agricultural equipment operator, general farm work, hay and straw, grains, corn and wheat. Many Minnesota workers come from Mexico, South Africa, New Zealand, Australia, Bosnia and Croatia, Bostic said (the Department of Labor data do not indicate what country workers come from).
If the state continues to have low employment and a scarcity of farm workers, Untiedt said demand for this program is likely to continue growing. There just aren’t a whole lot of other options.
“There is a tremendous scarcity of people, Minnesotans, local potential employees that would do this kind of work,” he said.
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Does Untiedt offer $18-$20 per hour to locals??
That’s what he says the “guest” workers cost. Let’s hear his answers – right here in this column.
I’d accept his argument that locals don’t want to do this work – the fundamental excuse for hiring foreign workers – ONLY if locals are turning down this rate & it is advertised effectively so locals know about it.
I’ll be surprised if this is true.
Surprise!
This isn’t just here – it’s all over the country. People can’t or won’t do this kind of work. It simply won’t get done without foreign workers.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2013/05/15/north-carolina-needed-6500-farm-workers-only-7-americans-stuck-it-out/?utm_term=.2a4e7bc1d03d
My question was about local wages offered.
No one seems to want to answer that one – apparently not Mr. Untiedt, either, to whom I’ve directed the question.
If you have specific knowledge about what local wages Untiedt’s offers, please state it here. It beggars belief that local workers won’t work for $20/hour because they don’t like the work – there are local industries with lots of workers who do really ugly jobs, and for plenty less.
Nope
If you have a basic understanding of rural economies, it does not beggar belief at all. It is simply a fact of life.
I don’t have any specific data for his particular area, but what he is saying is consistent with national data and with the areas of which I am familiar. What are you thinking – his area is an anomaly and he’s not telling the truth and wants to go through the much more difficult process of hiring foreigners over Americans?
The benefits to the employer are manifold.
I invite anyone reading this to see the Southern Poverty Law Center’s analysis, based on extensive research, entitled “Close to Slavery – Guest Worker Programs in the United States”. (Sorry, couldn’t paste the URL for some reason)
In particular, the SPLC focuses attention on the power relationships between employer & employee. These become so perversely skewed by the employers unconstrained power to send the guest worker back home, that the SPLC says guest worker rights and protections are virtually nullified.
I have seen this dynamic first-hand in the H-1B program. In either program, the workers are on an extremely short leash – and both employer and employee are ACUTELY aware of it.
You should do more research before writing or even acquiring your opinion; same goes for Greta Kaul, the author.
SPLC
I read the article. It talks about how the guest workers are abused and exploited. That is a serious problem that should be addressed, but it’s a different issue from the main point here, which is that guest workers are necessary because you can’t get Americans to do that work. The laws should be strengthened to protect their rights (unlikely to happen in the age of Trump). But that isn’t going to change the demand.
Again, this is Mr. Unteidt’s experience, my experience from where I have family in rural Wisconsin, the experience in the Post article I cited, and the comment from the apparently hardline anti-immigration guy even concedes what the BLS says. Americans won’t do these jobs. Just do some googling
http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-fi-farms-immigration/
Farming is hot, backbreaking work. Many people are physically unable to do it. The jobs are also not where a lot of people live, and people (Americans) are unwilling or unable to move). It’s not a conspiracy.
MinnPost & Research
Once or twice a month, MinnPost runs these articles that feature someone talking about hos hard it is to find labor. I can’t recall a single instance of the writter talking to someone with an alternative viewpoint. it just seems so sloppy and un-MinnPost like. Once is bad enough, but every time?
An article earlier this week about Fed Reserve Director Kashkari did quote him telling employers that they have not exhausted all options until they have raised wages. However that piece was not about employers but about Kashkari himself, and was only a brief mention.
Plenty of Labor?
I think the reason you are not reading articles contrary of this is that there are very few industries that have plenty of labor. I have talked with our local retail and restaurant managers and they are constantly looking for help. I know many cities that have been unable to get summer help at $10-15 per hour for their park maintenance work, park programs, custodial, etc. You can be critical of the article, but do a little of your own research. A simple check of city jobs on the League of MN Cities website under seasonal will give you a taste of the fact that there is a problem.
BLS Data
Farm labor is the ONLY type of “job Americans won’t do” according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data, at least in sufficient numbers to meet employer needs. If foreign farm workers don’t bring dependents in with them – with the accompanying social costs to taxpayers – then this type of immigration policy makes sense. Where the pro-open borders lobby misleads the public is when they claim that all types of other occupations are “jobs Americans won’t do”, the most prominent example being the building trades where hundreds of thousands of citizens have been displaced by lower-wage, mostly illegal immigrant labor. There’s a shorthand term for those displaced construction trades workers: Trump voters.
Nonsense
Americans will work in the construction trades, but they haven’t been displaced. There are labor shortages in nearly all sectors of the construction industry.
Some More Than Others
While it varies by trade and by region, “shortages” of skilled construction workers is strongly associated with the non-union sector of the industry, and is far less prevalent in the organized sector. When a contractor says he or she is having a hard time finding labor, ask them if they’ve contacted the local union hiring hall. It works just like any other temp labor service. If they’ve not sought labor at the local union hiring hall, what they really mean is they can’t find labor at the rate they’d like to pay.
The Meadowland Co-OP is expanding it’s grain facility in Walnut grove, MN. They have retained a contractor that wants to bring in foreign guest workers under the H2B program, claiming that they cannot get local workers, despite not having contacted the Mankato Building Trades. One skilled laborer went to the contractor to apply, and it took him three tries. They couldn’t even find an application!
The contractor, Genuine Builders, has misused H2B in the past.The got busted in Glencoe with workers that were supposed to be in So. Dak. They’d been in several states. The paltry fines they pay are merely a cost of dong business, in the course of further driving down middle class wages.
Good union construction jobs stabilize communities by providing vacations, holiday pay, medical insurance and retirement income security. Apprentice and continuing journeymen training ensures a steady supply of skilled labor, AND the training comes at zero cost to the taxpayers.
So why can’t the Meadowland Co-op and Genuine Builders support outstate Minnesotans?
Wonderful example of the “shortage” and foreign workers game
…so successfully played, and in full view, by the company you identify & lots of others.
I doubt your facts will make much of an inroad with those who hold fixed ideas, though.
Nonsense
Like the abuses highlighted in the SPLC report, this is evidence of companies abusing the guest worker program. What it is not evidence of is that there are available American workers to take those jobs. You are ignoring the actual relevant facts (worker shortages) to reach a conclusion based on different facts (guest worker abuse) that don’t support that conclusion.
https://www.tradesmeninternational.com/news-events/the-construction-labor-shortage-where-did-all-the-skilled-labor-go/
Oh For Pete’s Sake!
If they can’t even find an application, they aren’t even pretending to look for local labor.
Tradesman International is a very anti-union temp service.
Unions
I am all for strong unions and labor laws. It’s too bad tradesman increasingly vote Republican and undermine their own interests. I guess it’s just easier to blame immigrants.
I can’t answer your anecdote. Are there unemployed tradesmen besides the one guy who couldn’t find an application?
Reality
Your response is a perfect example of why so many blue-collar people voted for Trump. Far more construction work used to be done at union scale wages before the huge influx of illegal labor undercut wages for American citizens. Supply and demand still operates in labor markets, despite what this outlet and the mainstream media are too PC to admit. Here’s just one story – on NPR! – showing the effects of illegal labor.
http://www.npr.org/2013/04/10/176677299/construction-booming-in-texas-but-many-workers-pay-dearly
Yes and no
First, no – there is a difference between using guest workers when there is a labor shortage – which this story is about – and breaking the law to hire illegal immigrants on the cheap.
The yes part is that here, and in many other instances, Trump voters made their decision based on a poor or non-understanding of economics.