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CNN Live At Daybreak

Rawl Farm Employs Good Business Techniques

Aired September 03, 2001 - 07:50   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
VINCE CELLINI, CNN ANCHOR: Millions of people in the U.S. are spending this Labor Day laboring. Among them, migrant workers whop harvest fruit and vegetables from American farms. Growers say they can't do without migrant workers. But it's not always a labor of love.

CNN's Sean Callebs has more from a vegetable farm in South Carolina.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

SEAN CALLEBS, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): It's early. The sun is low in the Carolina sky. Already scores of migrant workers are doubled over harvesting the number one cash crop at the Walter P. Rawl farm, collard greens. There are about 100 migrants working here, some of the more than three million Mexican nationals earning a living in the United States. The reason, many can make as much here in one week as they can in a month or more in Mexico.

UNIDENTIFIED FARM WORKER: It is really important to send the money to my family. I feel really happy here. I am looking forward to December, to seeing my family.

CALLEBS: So, in the interim it's hours on end in the fields. The Rawl family farm has been part of the South Carolina landscape nearly 75 years. The difference between profit and loss can be whisker thin. Wayne Rawl says the ratio is helped by a plentiful, cheap workforce.

WAYNE RAWL, WALTER P. RAWL AND SONS FARM: We supply a lot of jobs and we put a lot back into the economy, we think, into Lexington County and the state.

CALLEBS: Many of the migrants here have nearly a decade of experience at the Rawl farm.

UNIDENTIFIED EMPLOYER: Hopefully they're going to want to keep coming back here and working with us. And that keeps us from having to retrain people year after year.

CALLEBS: Unions are trying to organize migrant workers out west. But there's no such effort in South Carolina. The Bush administration is working with Mexico to make migration to the U.S. safe and legal. But it's also keenly aware that it's a politically sensitive issue, not wanting to put workers in the United States at a disadvantage.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CALLEBS: I'm live now in Lexington, South Carolina. As large as this field seems, it's only going to take these workers a few hours to harvest all of these turnip greens. And they get more than minimum wage. The Rawl family also offers benefits, including insurance and 401K retirement plans. But don't mistake this entirely for generosity. The family says it just makes good business sense to do what they can to keep the trained workers and keep them from moving on.

Live in Lexington County, South Carolina, I'm Sean Callebs -- Vince, back to you.

CELLINI: All right, thank you very much, Sean.

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