Wisconsin Stories: Passing Through

Since the 1900s, migrant workers have been an integral part of Wisconsin's agricultural work force.

by Doris Slesinger

Doris Slesinger is Professor Emerita at UW-Madison's College of Agricultural and Life Sciences.

Early history (1900 - 1955)
The first use of migrant agricultural workers in Wisconsin was tied to the expansion of sugar-beet and vegetable production in the early 1900s. Most seasonal workers were recruited from low-income areas of Midwestern cities, including Sheboygan, Milwaukee, Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City. Early migrants were often of Belgian origin; as time passed Germans and Russians gradually replaced them. Many of these migrants eventually bought their own farms, settled out of the migrant stream and became permanent residents of the state.

Migrant workers pick cherries in Door County. Photo by Hagedorn Studio. WHS CF 5339 WHi 28571

The employment of migrant workers of Spanish-speaking origin became more prevalent in the 1920s and early 1930s. Sugar-beet companies actively recruited workers from the American Southwest. About 3,000 Texas-Mexicans came to Wisconsin annually during the 1930s.

To cope with increased demand for canned goods and a simultaneous shortage of labor during World War II, the U.S. government adopted the Emergency Farm Labor Program (1943-47), which permitted the contracting of foreign workers. Under this program, Wisconsin growers imported male workers from Jamaica, the Bahamas, British Honduras and Mexico. German and Italian prisoners of war were also used in the fields.

Because of Wisconsin's largely German ethnic heritage, the German prisoners were easily accepted as farm laborers. At the end of the war, 6,700 foreign agricultural workers were employed in Wisconsin, of whom only 1,300 were Mexican.

Following World War II, Wisconsin farm population declined, as many farmers took higher-paying urban jobs. However, Wisconsin agriculture still required a large seasonal labor force. Chippewa, Oneida and Menominee Indians from northern Wisconsin performed seasonal agricultural work, and growers continued to recruit workers. Most were now domestic workers from south Texas and neighboring Southern states. By 1950 Latinos made up the majority of out-of-state agricultural workers.

1955- present
The number of migrants employed in Wisconsin agriculture increased from an annual average of 8,000 in the late 1940s to a peak of about 15,000 around 1955. After that, a slow decline in numbers continued to about 1990, when it leveled off at about 6,000 per year (See Figure 2). Today, more than 90 percent of Wisconsin migrants are of Spanish-speaking origin, primarily from the Rio Grande Valley in south Texas. The mechanization of planting and harvesting is a major cause of the decline in hand labor.

Mechanization
Mechanization began affecting migrant employment in the early 1950s, beginning with the sugar beet, potato and snap-bean harvests. Less delicate than other fruits and vegetables, these crops were relatively conducive to machine handling. Engineers steadily improved the potato-harvesting machine, and by the 1960s, it had virtually supplanted hand harvesting. A snap-bean harvester was adopted around 1954, and it was instrumental in making Wisconsin the nation's top producer of snap beans for processing. Between 1950 and 1960, complete mechanization of the green bean and corn harvests was also achieved.

Picking cucumbers. Milwaukee Sentinel 1977. WHS CF 5488 WHi (x3) 36888

The story is different for the cucumber harvest. Attempts at mechanization began in the early 1960s, and designers had developed 18 different experimental cucumber pickers by 1967. However, the results were not satisfactory, as mechanical harvesters tended to damage the vegetables. The mechanical harvesters tended to blow the sandy soil in which they grew into the cucumbers' skin, producing sandy pickles. The machines also damaged the vines, making it impossible to pick the fields more than once a season, or to get small, medium and large cucumbers from a single field. Cucumber harvesting still requires more hand labor than any other crop grown in Wisconsin.

The cherry harvest was also mechanized in the mid-1960s. Wisconsin cherry growers saw mechanical tree shakers as a way to trim labor expenses and make them competitive with their Michigan counterparts, where yields were higher due to better soil and weather conditions. By 1968, 40 percent of the crop was harvested by machine, and by 1978, almost the entire crop was. The number of migrant workers employed in the cherry harvest dropped precipitously, from about 6,000 workers in 1949 to 2,150 workers in 1967 to 50 in 1978, where it remains today.

Other factors reducing demand for workers
Intensive hand hoeing and weeding was once essential for such high per-acre value crops as onions and mint. Onions compete poorly with weeds, and mint, which is grown primarily for its oil, must be entirely free of weeds before pressing. Since WWII, however, the use of chemical herbicides has greatly reduced the need for hand cultivation. Finally, the conversion of farms to "pick-your-own" operations has further reduced demand for workers. About 99 percent of the strawberries grown in Wisconsin are now harvested in this manner.

Employment in Food Processing
While demand for field labor has declined, demand for cannery workers has increased. Plants that process fresh vegetables, such as corn and peas, as they are harvested have high seasonal demands for workers. The produce must be picked, transported to the cannery and canned within a few days. Otherwise the chemical composition of the vegetables will change, and the product will deteriorate. Thus, packers require workers who can work two shifts per day for only a few weeks.

Because this schedule is not appealing to full-time residents, migrant workers are hired for the job. By the late 1960s, more migrant workers were employed in food processing plants in Wisconsin than in fieldwork. Today, there are about two migrant workers in food processing plants for each one in the fields.

The Use of Migrant Workers in Wisconsin Today
More than 90 percent of migrant workers today are of Mexican heritage. Many come from the Rio Grande Valley in Texas, between Eagle Pass and Brownsville; others live in Mexico. For many years, workers migrated in family units, bringing their children as well as some aging parents. Today, many families still travel together, although elders rarely accompany their children unless they are able to work.

Migrant workers harvest cabbage. Milwaukee Sentinel 1988. WHS CF 32913 (X3) 52639

An emerging trend is for employers to hire a group of young men from Mexico through contractors. They usually are transported by charter bus and live in single-sex dormitories while here.

Some Spanish-speaking migrant workers have started to find employment in non-agricultural industries like printing, bicycle manufacture, meatpacking or non-seasonal work like dairy farming. Although most employers would like these seasonal workers to remain in Wisconsin all year, many still return home in the winter months. However, each year a greater number of migrant workers "settle out" of the migrant life-style and make Wisconsin their permanent home.

Protections for Migrant Workers in Wisconsin
From the 1950s through the 1970s, the state passed a number of increasingly stringent protective laws requiring registration, inspection and certification of migrant camps. The 1977 law (Chapter 17, Sections 103.90-103.97) regulates housing, job contracts, guaranteed minimum wages and transportation. It is enforced by the Department of Workforce Development, Migrant Labor Services. The 1977 law also created the Governor's Migrant Labor Council to oversee the general compliance with the law and be a sounding board for concerns by grower/food processors; migrant organizations and representatives, and migrant workers themselves.