If the Wage Were Higher, Would You Shuck Oysters?

Jed Lipinski, Times-Picayune, May 5, 2016 - "It is only 9 a.m., and already I have stabbed myself twice. My back aches from crouching on a rickety plastic footstool. My jacket and face are spackled with a gray sludge that sprays me each time I crack open an oyster. And yet the hoodies and rubber overalls worn by the men beside me are almost spotless. This is all the more remarkable because they are moving much, much faster than me. By the end of the day, each of them will have shucked about five times as many oysters as I have. The skill with which the 46 shuckers employed by Crystal Seas Seafood practice their trade is impressive to behold. But it is also unsettling, as I know that such skill was acquired after months -- and in many cases years -- spent toiling in this cold and windowless warehouse reeking of oyster juice on the Mississippi Gulf Coast. Most are seasonal guest workers from Mexico, who come to the United States legally each year between October and June on H-2B visas. This class of visa is reserved for temporary and unskilled jobs for which there are not enough "able, willing, qualified and available" U.S. citizens, according to the Department of Homeland Security. Seafood processing plants around the country, and particularly on the Gulf Coast, say they rely on H-2B workers because U.S. citizens are no longer interested in picking crabs, peeling crawfish or shucking oysters for a living. Frank Randol, owner of Randol's Seafood in Lafayette, once hired seven prison trusties to process crawfish at one of his plants, but they all quit within two weeks. "One trusty said he would rather go back to jail than peel crawfish," Randol told the U.S. Senate Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee last year. Workers rights advocates contend that more U.S. citizens would take these jobs if they paid better. Crystal Seas pays its shuckers $9.65 an hour."