December 05, 2005

Jon Vessey, crops rotting in the fields, and pro-illegal immigration propaganda

Jon Vessey is a California grower who's been quoted in a few recent articles about how crops will rot in the fields unless growers get more cheap labor to pick it.

On 11/21, the WaPo featured him in "Shortage of Immigrant Workers Alarms Growers in West", and today the Los Angeles Times features him in "Picking a Battle Over Shortage of Farmworkers". And, he was apparently also featured saying similar things in Copley News Service and USA Today. And, the CSM article I discussed in "America's produce industry is facing a crisis" featured another member of the Vessey clan.

However, there appears to be quite a bit more to this story: Jon Vessey is on the Board of Directors of the Western Growers Association (source, cache). And, various Vesseys have been quote sources for decades (PDF file).

And, neither the LAT, nor the WaPo, nor the CSM noted this rather important connection. In fact, here's how the WaPo handled it:

"Today I have approximately 290 people working in the field," Jon Vessey said recently. Vessey runs an 8,000-acre winter vegetable farm with his son, Jack, near El Centro, Calif. "I should have 400, and for the harvest I need 1,100. . . . There's a disaster coming."

The Western Growers Association, which represents 3,000 farmers, is lobbying the Bush administration to make it easier for farmers to tap the labor pool just below the border.

I guess they meant to mention that there's a link between the two paragraphs, but an editor took that out. Or something like that.

Note also that left-wing bloggers fell for this too: here, here, here (nofollowpolicy).

Contact the CSM here, and send emails to these: readers.Rep *at* latimes.com and ombudsman * at* washpost.com.

UPDATE: A commentor at the first PA thread says this unverified bit:

It's going back to 1982, but a leopard does not change its spots. Jon Vessey is the CEO of Vessey & Co. which lost a case in that year filed by the UFW. The Agricultural Labor Relations Board (ALRB) found that the respondents (Vessey, Maggio, ...) had bargained in bad faith with the union regarding the contract for lettuce pickers. Remember the iceberg lettuce boycott? The findings of the ALRB are available [in this PDF file].

Posted to Immigration_piipps at December 5, 2005 10:32 AM

Comments

Cheap labor? Illegal immigrants? Where the fuck does it say that someone from another country should do the shit for nothing. Cheap ass farmers get legal workers and pay decent wages. Farmwork is hard and it sucks.Are you fuckers expecting people to work their asses off in fuckin weather conditions like 2 inches of rain in an hour? Pay decent wages or screw yourself.

Posted by: Onkelz at December 5, 2005 06:25 PM

Some mexican make up to $30 dollars per hour, some make $10 per hour but all are here illegally, that is the point, before 1941 most people that worked at this kind of job were poor whites and poor blacks and the labor movement for more money was started by poor whites who wanted kids to go to schools in fact the civil rights movement was started by whites and black labors.

the fact is in the 1960s all whites and blacks were removed by the mexican workers because most mexican's and south americans would work for one or two dollars per hour and in some cases for five dollars ( 12 hour days ) a day.

Posted by: Fred Dawes at December 5, 2005 08:35 PM