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Research - Workers about Employers & Experience

Below is information on what the worker's say about their employers.
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The survey was sent by mail and each employer was asked to distribute the survey to their seasonal workers. Return envelopes were also provided for each employer to ease the process of receiving the surveys back. When the final survey was received at the end of the season, 62 respondents filled out their surveys and returned their questionnaires back to Pluto, Inc.’s offices.

We can gladly report that most of the respondents indicated and answered the questions in such a way that their experience can be described as very positive.

The survey had 62 questions that were all closed questions divided into the following sections:

Personal interaction questions – dealing with diverse aspects like hygiene, communications, planning, values, equipment safety, honesty, abuse, patience, and work ethics.
Meals and Accommodation – Questions were based on if the worker was a harvest crew - member or working on a crop farm – in which case the provision of food is not an obligation of the employer.
Pay and work hours – these questions dealt with how many hours the worker worked, expectations and pay related to the hours, as well as airplane ticket reimbursement.
Return expectations - Would a worker like to return?
Induction course and training questions – These results are for internal use.

With the initial questions on the workers evaluations of issues like the employers smoking, drinking, language and personal hygiene, most workers (70%) indicated that none of these were real issues. The use of bad language (20%) and lack of personal hygiene (13%) was considered by some as a problem.

There were a few questions of which the results point to some issues that might have to be further explored and resolved. Following is a summary of some of the questions where the results were a surprise or raised more questions.

Question 8 – asking about the number of meetings

Based on some of the findings we already had, this question was asked to determine if the number of meetings between employer and worker could provide an explanation for the communications findings. The result was very interesting, since even though most people feel that they had an open channel of communication, there were 18% of the respondents, who indicated that the employers never had an official meeting with them. 10% indicated having only one meeting during the whole period. Another 10% said they met on a weekly basis with 60.7% indicating that they had a meeting whenever they asked their employer for a meeting.

Question 12 – rating how fair the workers perceive their employers to be

This question asks the workers if they felt that their employer is fair. This is also a possible indicator why a few workers feel the interaction skills of their employer’s were bad. More than a third felt their employer is very fair (36%). Those with a general positive view totaled 82%. The question is – why do nearly 15% feel that their employer wasn't fair. This maybe needs to be analyzed in terms of pay, airplane reimbursement, number of hours worked versus pay or another indicator.

Question 16 – the experience of verbal abuse and Question 33 - willingness to return

Question 16 the workers were asked “how often they have to experience verbal abuse by their employer?”. 27.8% indicated that they have to endure verbal abuse. Of the 27% -18% said sometimes and 9.8% said every now and then. Another 20% said they seldom experienced verbal abuse and most workers (52.5%) never reported experiencing verbal abuse.

The fact that 18% are enduring verbal abuse, even though only “sometimes” - might be a factor in the overall experience the workers have while in the US. It also might shed light on why 7% who “never” want to return (question no 33) to their employer and another 7% “only if things change” and another 27% indicated a lot of reservation to return to the same employer – by choosing the “maybe” option. Only further detailed research will give us a clear picture.

Question 33

With question 28 we tried to determine how prepared the workers were before coming to the USA with regard to the number of hours they will be working. We also tried to determine if the workers are working more or less hours than what they committed for in their contracts.

We found that only 20% of the workers work around the number of hours (48 hours) as stipulated in their contract. Most workers (75.4%) indicated that they worked substantially more than the agreed upon 48 hours. Actually 35% indicated that they believe they worked between 60 and 80 hours per week. Another 34.4% indicated that they work between 80 and 100 hours per week and 6.6% said they worked more than a 100 hours per week.

When asked in question 29 how they feel about all these working hours – only 16.4% said that it was more than what they expected. What this shows is that most of them are informed before they leave that they might be expected to work more than just the 48 hours and that they might have to work very long hours. 31% indicated that the hours were as what they expected. If we add up al the workers who gave a positive response to the question we find that 78.7% of the workers were prepared and therefore not surprised at the long hours they had to work.

Question 31 – Did the workers feel they received the correct pay?

If we combine the above information with the answers we received on question number 31 – we see that 80% of the workers were of the opinion that they were paid correctly. This indicates two issues – either the workers did not know how much they should be paid and therefore assumed they were paid correctly or the more positive interpretation is that most employers pay the workers correctly for the number of hours.

The result of this question has to be further explored since lots of verbal complaints were received during the season of underpayment and feelings of exploitation. These objections might not have any validity, especially if gauged in the light of the results of these questions, but will be explored in a different manner in the future.

Question 32 – Were any incentive bonuses offered or paid?

On this question we can gladly report that 26.2% of the workers indicated that they did receive a bonus – which is really praise worthy, but unfortunately there were also 20% who indicated that they were promised a bonus but never received it. This would be very demoralizing and could account for the 41% who indicated a reservation in wanting to return to the same employer.