In northern California wine country, the Sonoma Valley based, Vineyard Worker Services is seeing its business rise dramatically during the current recession. But that is not a good thing. The service is in the business of helping agricultural workers with employment, health care, and housing and the boom in business means dramatic job losses in the Sonoma County and Napa County local wineries. With only three staff personnel they are getting inundated with the sixty or seventy migrant field hands per week who are trying to find new vineyard work, or anything else to fill the void in current opportunities.
The economy has certainly played a large role in the wineries push toward cost cutting and efficiencies, cutting labor as much as they can. But the unusually warm weather this winter and the lack of rain have meant that the pruning season was sooner and could be addressed in an abbreviated fashion, cutting labor further. The competition for the work has intensified, meaning that the workers are undercutting each other and driving labor costs downward. Vineyards and wineries are also outsourcing their labor to contractors because they can reduce costs that way.
Vineyard Worker Services had been providing affordable housing for the vineyard labor workers with two camps, housing fifty workers at each during the harvest and pruning seasons. But the group which relies on a limited budget through contributions doesn’t believe that they will have the resources to fund both camps this year, and also fears the health services that have been created over time and are in place for the workers. Ramirez also fears he'll have to cut back on the affordable health services that took years to implement.
There was hope of appealing to the wine industry throughout Sonoma County and Napa County which they serve such as the vineyards, the growers, the wineries, the vintners, and the processing plants for assistance but while the group is subsidizing costs which would otherwise be passed on through the industry, the economic woes have created apathy within the industry and no one is keen to take up the mantle for improving the situation because their needs are largely being met at reduced costs, so they would prefer to allow the market forces to dictate circumstances as they will, until which time they feel an impact.
