Buckets of grapes -- Life as a migrant worker

Coming to you from the Deeeeep South -- Margaret River, Western Australia to be exact. My venture here has been less fruitful financially than I first intended, which is what has led me to sell myself to the world of picking grapes and being paid by the bucket. 

I initially came to Margaret River with sparkly dreams of working on a vineyard crew (with an hourly pay rate) for a vintage season. Small problem... due to my lack of any planning and my addiction to scuba diving, I arrived in Margaret River a few weeks too late to apply for those jobs. Nevertheless, I snagged myself a job at a brewery, and working wedding events at a vineyard as well. The flaw with this is that these jobs are mostly weekend affairs and I have entirely too much free time during the week during which I would like to be working to save more money. 

The funny thing about the town of Margaret River is the fact that it is surrounded for kilometers upon kilometers by vineyards. These vineyards all harvest during the period of time between early February and mid-April. Some do their picks using machines, and others do handpicks employing job-seeking travelers, like me.

As an American, I'm legally working using what is called a "Work and Holiday Visa." This is one specific subclass of tourist visa that allows you to be employed through one employer for no longer than 6 months at a time, within the year that you are given on the visa. You may leave and re-enter the country however many times you please, but once your year starts upon your first entrance to the country, the clock is ticking. Other countries' citizens are given a "Working Holiday Visa." This visa subclass allows for you to extend a second year of working in Australia, given you complete three months of "regional work." Regional work can include anything from working on cattle ranches, to fruit picking, to working specific jobs within mining, etc. 

Why is this explanation of visa subclasses important, you ask? Basically, because Australians know that people have to do regional work for their visas, they can get away with paying migrant workers absurdly low wages for whatever work they may be doing for them. Most people would never bother to do picking work at all, if it weren't for the necessity of doing it to get their second year working visa. I can't get a second year, but I do want to make money... this had led me to wake up each day of the week at 4:45 in the morning (okay, really I don't get out of bed until five) to pick grapes until our picking group gathers the tonnage that the vineyard requires for that particular session of winemaking. 

This particular day we were lucky enough to experience a torrential downpour for a solid hour during picking. 

The pickers (i.e. me) are hired through private contracting agencies. We are paid between $1 and $6 a bucket (pre-tax), depending on the size of the grape and the ease of finding them in the vines -- which translates to how fast you can fill a bucket. For the last week, we've been picking chardonnay grapes. These are small grapes that are found hidden in the middle of sometimes incredibly thick vines. Chardonnay bunches range from a handful size to bunches the size of a small plum.

A long way to go on filling this bucket of chardonnay grapes. 

Chenin blanc grapes hidden among the leaves and vines. 

Picking work is tedious. It can be somewhat back breaking due to the location of grapes low on the vines and the need to carry partially full buckets under the vines to the next row. If the row is particularly long and the picking crew is quite small, it is also necessary to walk the buckets down the rows to another panel. The panels are about three meters long, and you pick one side first, and then the other before moving on.

Each morning we pick, I get a ride from a friend and head to whichever vineyard we happen to be picking for on that given day. We pick from about six am until whenever we finish accumulating the amount of tonnage necessary. Sometimes we finish after a few hours, if we have a small amount to pick and a large picking team, and other times (generally on days where I feel less than enthused about being there) we have a large amount to pick and a small picking team.

Sidenote: I would not suggest picking grapes hungover. Ever. Motivation levels for picking fast completely dissipate, and all that’s left is a headache in the blazing sun and the lack of coordination that may or may not lead you a snipping your finger off with your grape cutting shears. Life lessons.

You are given a set of number tags at the beginning of the day and each time you fill a bucket, you leave a number tag in the bucket to be collected and tallied by the vineyard staff. I’ve averaged about ten buckets a day for most of the picks. This is far from amazing. There are some people that make it to twenty buckets a pick, but I’m positive that they cut off the biggest bunches and move on, filling their buckets with ease. You are told to leave no fruit, but there are not always supervisors there to watch everyone.

Some cabernet grapes that have been feasted on by the birds. 

This is a side job for me, but for a lot of the backpackers, it is their sole job. It’s hard for me to imagine living and saving if you are making only about 150-200 AUD (Australian Dollars) a week. My weekly rent is 75 AUD and then I probably spend at least 50-75 AUD a week on food if I’m eating really basic/cheap foods and not eating out at restaurants.

If you speak to the locals or other pickers about the fact that you are grape picking for income and not a second year visa, they stare at you in disbelief. They also warn you about how corrupt all of the contracting agencies are and advise you to check your pay stubs each week. Hourly minimum wage for casual hourly-paid workers is 21.03 AUD in Western Australia. I pick about three to five buckets in an hour on a good day. At 4 AUD a bucket, that means my wages are anywhere between 12-20 AUD an hour.

I’m quite positive that bucket rates are calculated by averaging the amount of buckets that all of the pickers complete and then dividing it somehow into the tonnage in order to keep pickers just at the poverty level of wages. I witnessed an argument in one of the contracting offices between a picker and an office employee in which the picker shared his frustrations about leaving a well paying job in order to do vineyard work (probably for a second year visa). The office employee basically said it didn’t matter if he wanted to quit, because they would just find someone else to replace him.

In reality, you are an expendable employee in any job that you undertake. If you aren’t fulfilling the expectations set forth by your given employer, they have a right to get relieve you of your position. I’ve never felt quite as disposable as I do at this job. I imagine that all over the world, there are workers that are undertaking jobs similar to this as their staple income. Their migrant work is probably not undertaken by choice to support their travel addiction. Here's to a new experience leading to some insight and gratitude for the opportunities that have presented themselves to me in this life. 

Some other obstacles to avoid while picking.

The end of a hard days work.