As one result, the work force and the wage system changed. In this case,
local
women paid hourly wages to sort machine-picked tomatoes replaced bracero men
who earned piece rate wages to hand-pick tomatoes. According to one account,
"Before the tomato harvester, tomatoes were harvested largely by braceros...
re-
cruited from rural villages in Mexico... [attracted by] unusually good
wages."
Employers asked their year-round tractor drivers and irrigators to bring
their wives
to ride on the tomato harvesting machines, and many did-the tomato harvest
la-
bor force changed from over 95 percent male in the early 1960s, to over 80
percent
female by the late 1960s (Friedland and Barton, 1975, 59-61).
Seckler, David and Andrew Schmitz. 1969. Mechanized Agriculture and Social
Welfare;
The Case of the Tomato Harvester. mimeo. December.
Piore, Michael J. 1979. Birds of Passage; Migrant Labor and Industrial
Societies. New
York: Cambridge University Press.
... male in the early 1960s, to over 80 percent female by the late 1960s
(Friedland
and Barton, 1975, 59-61). The tomato case illustrates what happens when
wages ...
www.google.com/search?q=cache:q9kib1-Uk1E:www.utexas.edu/lbj/uscir/binpapers
/v1-3latapi.pdf+William+Friedland+UFW&hl=en
...grateful to William Friedland, William Heffernan, Lyle Schertz, Katherine
... for field
workers. Friedland et al. go ... United Farm Workers (UFW), to organize
workers ...
http://www.google.com/search?q=William+Friedland+UFW
----- Original Message -----
From: "Michael Perelman" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, June 28, 2001 9:07 AM
Subject: [PEN-L:14222] Re: Re: Cuban Genetic Engineering (was Jesse Lemisch)
> Regarding mechanization, the rise of the farm workers union caused the
Univ. of
> Calif., Davis to invent the mechanical tomato picker and the hard tomato.
>
> --
>
> Michael Perelman
> Economics Department
> California State University
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Chico, CA 95929
> 530-898-5321
> fax 530-898-5901
>
