I’ve been a cellar rat, but I stay out of the vineyard. I think the overtime laws (such as they are) are the same in the cellar, different in the vineyard as you indicate although I think they are also changing in California this year.
-Al
What would you suggest I do? I cannot make people apply. Ad is currently running on 6 sites. 2 people from the US have applied. Perhaps it will pick up, perhaps it won’t. I have gotten credible applications from overseas and am looking into hedging my bets. It is WAY harder to deal with foreign workers for any long list of reasons. However, offering high end of scale for the area wages, food, reasonable by harvest standards working hours, etc. and am not seeing much. At some point it is what it is. Had 5 people pretty quickly last year. Of those 5, one was hired as a winemaker, one has a successful online jewelry career, one got a job recently at another winery, one went back to Texas and another back to New Mexico. Basically the same work terms for this year and so far not much. Could be that it’s a tad early but it’s not like we’re the only winery running harvest ads right now.
We’ll see but the reality is it seems to be a slow year on this front. I wondered when it would get harder to find this sort of worker. Someone willing to work 7 days/week 8-12 hours/day doing both hard and repetitive work for six straight weeks. Maybe that time has come where that pool is way smaller and the number of wineries is way bigger.
So first of all…much respect for what you do and how you do it. It is always easy in business to take pot shots (which I did not mean to do, I also have run businesses all my life and run into adversity…I made some good calls and not so good calls). Having said all of that…I stand by my view point “I as a consumer would pay more (if I knew) for a wine with American workers, then I would with foreign labor.” Wine is at the end of the day a luxury good. Is this a marketing opportunity w your customers?
I don’t think it’s the money. People routinely make $2,000/week doing harvest here with free meals. I don’t think we’re paying too little. I think the labor is scarcer and there are simply more wineries. Also, as pointed out by others, you can’t just hire anyone. Not everyone can do this work. Not everyone can handle working the hours. You have to be other extremely motivated or a little nuts.
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It’s also seasonal work, as well as young persons’ work. Those two factors play very strongly to a very narrow age bracket. Post-college, pre-career. Some lucky interns get hired for year-round winery work, but there aren’t that many positions, and someone taking such a position will occupy it for a few years. So, the vast majority find some other job. Maybe they can swing taking off for another harvest the next year, but if they’re good winery workers, they’re good in their positions at wine shops, wine bars, restaurants, etc. They get promoted, the businesses become more reliant on them and pressure them/incentive them not to take another harvest off.
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I worked a crush last fall for the first time in a few years, though I could only do it part-time. It was at a fairly well-known local winery where I’ve helped out from time to time in the past, and they’ve always had plenty of harvest interns in past years. But as others here have noted, things have changed. This winery was only able to find one full-time intern last fall, from another country - she’s still working there and does an amazing job. The winery managed to fill in with a bunch of part-timers, and I believe all of us had previous crush experience so that was very helpful.
I was there one day last fall a few weeks into crush when the winery brought in two new interns that I think they were hoping could be full-time or at least close to it. Both were local guys - one apparently had a little previous winery experience while the other did not. Neither lasted there more than that one day. Not everyone can handle this type of work.
Jim, wading through the thread I’m not sure that you’ve received a comprehensive answer so here you go:
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Any outside of the US worker (not legally permitted to work in the US with a valid work visa, green card, etc.) is going to need to apply for a J1 temporary work visa. That’s your best bet for getting international harvest help when it comes to a US work visa
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The way the J1 works is they need to apply through a sponsorship organization. There are many of these organizations, CAEP is one of them. Your winery will end up being the host for the worker. They’ll only be permitted to work at your winery while on the J1 and their stay is limited to a maximum of 1 year. DM me if you want my opinion on +/- of different sponsorship organizations.
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There are going to be two major hurdles that your applicant(s) needs to get over (COVID has made things harder): (1) Your candidate is going to need to schedule and then attend an in person interview at a US embassy in the country that they currently reside in (not necessarily their home country). Some embassy’s are closed, have limited hours or are scheduling J1 interview appointments 6+ months out. (2) Their all-in cost of J1 visa sponsorship, travel to the US and potential upfront living expenses (rental deposit, transportation, etc.) are going to be somewhere between $3K and $5K. It’s not inexpensive for them to come to the US.
I would highly recommend looking for candidates who are tenacious and resourceful as it’s not an easy path to make it to the US for a harvest.
I hope that this helped. Feel free to DM me if you want to discuss more or have any other questions.
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