Cherries
Cherry harvests start as early as May in California's San Joaquin Valley, the Sacramento Valley, and in the foothills of the Sierra Mountains. In June, you'll probably find work in Washington State's lower and upper Yakima valleys, in Oregon's fertile Willamette Valley and the Dallas, or in Utah. In northern Colorado, both sweet and tart cherries are plucked from trees during early July; this is also the time for Michigan and for the Hudson Valley in New York State. The harvest is generally short, lasting only a few days. When it comes to quantities the cherry harvest doesn't compare with that of apples.
In many states, the harvest is in the hands of contractors who contact the Texas-based crew chiefs. The contractor deals with the cherry grower, who indicates the number of needed workers. The crew chiefs next find the harvesters and drive them north in trucks. The crews are often made up of Mexican families. What if you don't have a crew chief? Then you are single or a "loner" and find your own work as you go. The pay is mediocre but the Bings and Royal Anns taste great.
Your services may be needed very much in some parts of the United States. A labor expert from the Dallas, Oregon, region, for instance, paints this favorable picture: "Hot weather, forcing a rapid harvest, could produce a shortage of pickers in any given year. Mechanization still has no significant impact on the local cherry industry."
Bear in mind that bad weather can also wreak havoc with the delicate ripening process of the small juicy fruit. During many years, the entire crop of tart cherries can be ravaged by freezes. In short, ask the nearest agricultural agent about the season's prospects before hitching a ride to the orchards. Three-fourths of the nation's sweet cherries come from the Pacific Northwest; in poundage, even the entire U.S. harvest amounts to only 127,000 tons a season. Moreover, some orchards encourage families to pick their own instead of hiring you and then marketing the output. One of the great U-pick enterprises is the San Gorgonio Valley region of California. One man who came with his wife tells about his experience: "You are furnished a ladder and buckets and assigned a certain tree. You bring your own boxes for carrying the cherries home. U-pick prices are based on the Los Angeles wholesale market."
If the above shouldn't discourage you, here are several leads for jobs:
National Cherry Growers Institute
1105 NW 31st, Corvallis, OR 97330 Beaumont Cherry Growers Association
P.O. Box 397, Beaumont, CA 92223 The Job Service Center
Loveland, CO 80537
There are also Job Service Centers located in The Dallas, Hood River, Milton-Freewater-all Oregon.
Citrus
The citrus scene may coincide with your winter vacation. Citrus fruit grows only in warm climates, so you find yourself out there in the good sun, under the good blue sky, grooving on the good earth. Help can be needed so much between November and May that you may bring a friend, male or female, and the growers almost give you a medal for it. Keep in mind that your employers need more than just pickers; somebody-in fact, many bodies!-must also wash, sort, grade, and pack the vitamin C-filled fruit. More and more of these chores are done mechanically these days, but packing house jobs exist, especially for females. And the citrus harvest work on the high ladders is no harder than other fruit picking. Fortunately, so states one Florida agricultural expert, "Growers must rely on seasonal workers for many more years." Reason? Citrus crops don't lend themselves to mechanical harvesting. Not at this point, anyway.
Each type of citrus fruit is unique in its own way. Orange trees, for instance, never shed their leaves; so you work under a fairly shady canopy.
Grapefruit? A grapefruit can weigh a pound or more. Among the varieties, there are some whose flesh is a brilliant ruby color. One grower actually uses a "picking ring"; if the fruit can pass through the ring because of its small size, it will have to linger on the tree awhile longer. In most citrus-growing regions, the ripe grapefruit is picked each month, December through April. As a result, you'll find temporary jobs at various times of the year. Russ Leadabrand, a well-known California harvest watcher, tells us: "The lemon harvest goes on the year around. In fact, there is no time of the year when lemon trees are not simultaneously bearing buds, blossoms, and ripening fruit-although the most profuse blooming coincides with that of the oranges from late February to early April. A lemon takes about six months to ripen. Picking crews work over each tree every six weeks. They pick not by color but by size-taking only the lemons that do not slide through a wire measuring ring. In the course of a year a single good tree may bear 3,000 lemons."
To be sure, working conditions vary. In the West Coast orchards owned by the Connecticut Mutual Insurance Company, harvesters complain fiercely about defective ladders and the lack of first aid equipment. In some other parts of the country, rattlesnakes are not uncommon.
Where to Find Work
Essentially, there are three basic citrus-growing areas in the U.S. So you'll have to head for one of the three if you want to get hired. Florida leads the other citrus states by a long line of boxes to be filled with juicy oranges, big grapefruit, and shiny lemons. California comes next, producing about 40 million boxes of oranges, among other fruit. (A box usually weighs 70 pounds.) To this, you can add lemons and limes.
Texas follows, with a goodly crop of grapefruit, especially in the Lower Rio Grande Valley, which has about 5,000 grapefruit groves.
You'll find many trees near the following Texas communities: Weslaco (78596); Edinburg (78539); McAllen (78501); San Benito (78586). And there is also some activity in Arizona. Makes for a nice winter vacation.
Easterners and mid-westerners might as well head for central Florida. Find Ocala on any map; the jobs are south of that city, all through the central belt of the state. According to the Florida Department of Agriculture, "Harvesting work can be obtained through registration at a Farm Labor Office of the Division of Employment Security, Florida Department of Commerce. However, many workers simply make themselves available at well-known pick-up points during the harvest season and wait for an employer to come along."
How about California?
Statisticians estimate that the count of orange trees in the state is presently around 9 million trees. This includes Valencias and navels, of course. Valencias are picked from spring (about May) through early winter (November); navels during the winter through May. You're quickly aware of the season when you see the first roadside stands hawking their pretty wares. For oranges, your best bet is to thumb a ride (or drive) into amazingly fertile Joaquin Valley or into the Sacramento Valley. You also see plenty of orange groves in the lower Sierra around San Diego.
California isn't as prolific as Florida when it comes to grapefruit; most of the crop comes from the Joaquin and the Coachella valleys. Lemons? Your best California counties: Ventura, Riverside, Santa
Barbara, San Bernardino, San Diego, Tulare, Kern, Fresno. The Oxnard Plain is also an ideal country for lemons. That's the area between the Pacific and State Highway 126. Other sites with lemon groves are in Goleta, around Carpinteria, between U.S. Highway 101 and the beach. Some of the business is also in the hands of Sunkist, which you should contact to learn the names of its many growers. (See following addresses.)
Texas is hotter than California's coastal areas. But some people of the Midwest will find Texas closer. With about 17 million grapefruit boxes each season, the Lower Rio Grande Valley is headquarters for citrus. Both central and western Arizona also provide some jobs.
Other Fruit
Depending on the region, you will probably find opportunities harvesting other fruit. Prunes, tangelos, pears, and nuts all require some labor in various parts of the country. California's Coachella Valley and Arizona are rich with date palms. Date harvesting methods remind you of public utility or telephone company trucks that hoist a person high up into the air. (Date palms can measure almost 100 feet.) California's Palm Desert area can be lively with these mechanical date pluckers from November through February. You must appear on the scene to get hired. Ditto in Hawaii, which still leads in the U.S. pineapple business.
Fruit Canneries
Most of the seasonal jobs in this book were picked for their outdoorsy or adventurous qualities. You can derive a certain sense of scenery from harvesting peaches in Colorado, for instance, or satisfy your back-to-the-soil instincts in farming.
Fruit and vegetable canneries, by contrast, are not places where you can get high. If the jobs are mentioned here at all, it is because they are seasonal and occasionally plentiful. The jobs provide some bread all right, or money for graduate studies; cannery employment helps you keep afloat while waiting for a slot in a better occupation.
Forget about excitement, creativity, and genuine companionship in a food factory. Ask anyone who has done the work: it is monotonous, boring and dumb. The plant itself may be noisy (lots of machines) and hot (poor ventilation).
Most of the jobs for both men and women are "on the line" (meaning the assembly line) to produce cans of sauerkraut, jars of pickles, applesauce. Whether you are canning peaches-27 billion cases of canned peaches leave California each September!- or processing tomatoes, pears, green beans, corn, you'll probably be doing repetitive chores. Your title gives a good clue; among the often available temporary jobs are: bottle-labeler operator, pickle-sorting belt operator, filler operator, can-seam checker, sorter, cleaners, bottle-capper operator, brine processor, pickle-case stenciler.
You may be recruited for other, equally dull, stay-in-one-spot tasks; in addition, canneries frequently have openings for "crate pushers," lift truck operators, and truck drivers.
Some of the more progressive food processors may rotate "line" people to a different "station." But most canneries don't do this, so you'll be stuck as "can-seam checker" for the duration, which could be anywhere from two weeks to three months.
When should you apply? Cannery employment follows on the heels of harvesting. The Farm Labor Service or state employment centers will give you the local dates. According to a national survey, the greatest need for cannery labor is in the Midwest. You will also encounter lots of opportunities in California, especially in the Stockton and Modesto areas, which have helpful state employment offices. Keep in mind that California has almost eighty canneries and produces about 50 percent of the U.S. canned fruit, 85 percent of the canned tomatoes. Apparently, it is slightly more difficult to find work in the East and in Florida. According to the Thad F. Adams Food Brokerage Company, which specializes in the business, the peak canning times are July and August. (In California alone, canneries then employ some 30,000 persons.) Adams suggests that you apply in September when most students go back to school. Some plants are in dire need of hands just then. Major frozen food plants operate the year round.
The Union Lowdown
So much for the good news. Now the bad news.
Most of America's food canneries are in the tough palms of America's labor unions.
Ironically, you still have to apply for the cannery job yourself. A union won't help you get it. But once you have worked for thirty days in a plant, you must pay a union initiation fee and monthly dues. You must pay, whether you like it or not.
Some people call this exploitation and hate to pay for their right to work. One young woman who started working "the line" at the
Kuner-Empson Company was very irate about Local 452-the cannery union-when she found out about her pay. She was merely getting the federal minimum wage for a dehumanizing assembly line job. Despite the Teamster (Local 452) representation. In fact, she could work anywhere in Colorado for three dollars an hour. Without paying for the upkeep of a union boss. She quit the cannery job, of course.
It is true that some women-in the quality control department or the drivers-get better wages. But these are average at best. And depending on the job itself, the employees must fork over an initiation fee of $15 to $75 to the unions and then shell out from $5 to $10 for the privilege of slaving in an overheated, over-noisy plant with sometimes slippery floors.
Some workers welcome the "International Brotherhood of Teamsters, Chauffeurs, Warehousemen & Helpers of America" for their own reasons. Others resent the stranglehold, especially on a temporary worker.
To be sure, conditions in the food processing plants were hardly improved by the unions. One U.S. expert, Lowell Ponte, expresses it this way, "Worker slavery, far from abolished, has largely been transferred from control by company owners to control by union bosses. Essentially undemocratic and coercive in nature, unions have more in common with big business and big government than with the workers whose interests they are supposed to serve."
Unfortunately, only a handful of large canneries and some small ones have managed to remain free. If the union question interests you, information is available by writing to: National Right to Work Committee, 8316 Arlington Blvd., Fairfax, VA 22030.
