Don Curlee: Vintage ag-labor housing in Napa

Of the 7 million visitors to the Napa Valley each year, a very small percentage ever encounters any of the farmworkers who make the area's renowned wine production possible.

But the region's growers and winery owners long ago learned that happy and well-housed workers are a key to their kind of specialized agricultural production. After all, grapes that make wine that sells for $65 a bottle and more deserve special care.

So, more than 10 years ago the wine producers decided to assess themselves $10 per acre to establish a housing facility for workers who migrate to the valley. The result is an attractive complex where single men live two to a unit, with a dining room, shower, laundry and other necessities on the premises, and convenient access to transportation.

But that is only the beginning. Besides working cooperatively to build a village for migrant workers, the growers have worked independently to establish and maintain on-farm housing for permanent workers. Practically all growers provide some worker housing, and many provide it for all their employees.

By far the higher percentage of worker housing in the Napa Valley is supplied by growers, and is on-farm. The migrant village is a convenient stop-off for workers arriving in the valley from other locations, perhaps for the first time. Moving to on-farm residency occurs as their employment and residential status become more permanent.

The workforce is almost entirely Hispanic, and demographics prove the permanency rather than the migratory nature of workers. The population of the Napa Valley is now about 33 percent Hispanic, up from 13 percent 20 years ago. That compares to the percentage of Hispanics in the Central Valley counties where workers are more inclined to move from crop to crop, sometimes changing locations in the process.

The migrant village functions without federal assistance. The cost to house and feed the occupants exceeds $1 million annually, paid out of the assessment that growers have levied on themselves. Municipalities, churches, businesses and charities contribute food and cash donations to make it a truly community-wide effort.

While the facility for migrants is an attractive example of caring for the migrant population, many consider it only a drop in the bucket in the overall housing of farmworkers in the area. It attracts frequent attention, as it did for Bay Area writer Scott James, whose coverage in the Bay Citizen served as the base for this column.

One prominent grower expressed the skepticism about the migrant village that is shared by a significant portion of Napa Valley's residents. "It caters to those who know how to work the system," he said. Even so, he has been a contributor to its operation from the beginning through the acreage assessment fund.

Also, he has seen a collateral advantage from the stable housing offered both in the migrant village and by on-farm units. "It has become a barrier to union organizational efforts," he said, notably those of the United Farmworkers of America.

"It takes a village," a former first lady said, referring to the upbringing of children. In the case of the wine industry in the Napa Valley, the migrant village and compassionate concern for farmworkers is creating stability among workers.

If they see union membership in a new light through the window of a clean, comfortable residence, chalk it up to compassionate treatment. Consumers play an important role as well when they buy that $65-per-bottle wine, not too much to pay when it contributes so much to long and restful Napa naps.

CONTACT Don Curlee at agwriter1@sbcglobal.net