I worked one summer doing migrant labor in agriculture harvesting blueberries in Maine. I migrated with my sister from elsewhere in the US. We were doing it bec

I worked one summer doing migrant labor in agriculture harvesting blueberries in Maine. I migrated with my sister from elsewhere in the US. We were doing it because we wanted money and we were curious about the experience. Alongside us were poor people from Maine -- Native Americans and poor European Americans -- and migrant laborers from south of the border. There was a solidarity among all the groups, and strangely, between all these groups and our overseers against the land owners and Wyman Foods, our ostensible employers. One thing I saw was that the Hispanic laborers were in a lot better shape and in better practice than the other groups. Another thing I saw was that the people who got ahead disregarded the rules we were set. There was a particular technique in raking the berries we were to employ which would maximize profits for the landowners and minimize waste but which was much less efficient per hour. There was another technique, called sweeping, which would maximize the amount we harvested per hour at the cost of many more berries dropped on the ground, so less profit per acre. An advantage the migrant groups had on top of their greater fitness and experience was that they felt less solidarity with the landowners, so they were more willing to break the rules for their own gain. The overseers were cool with this, generally. My point is that this may be a pattern repeated across the globe. It isn't just that the migrants are cheaper and you can cheat them with less consequence. It's also that various parties in the arrangement can shift the burden of harvesting to their preference under the table. I'm not saying that anyone is wrong -- though my preference is that there be less waste -- but that there's something people prefer in having labor from away with different alliances. I'm not certain this is true, but in my particular experience it certainly was. To elaborate still further, I'm not saying this is necessarily wrong. The landowners still made out well, and they were earning profit without labor. The spilled berries went to the birds and insects. I'm just saying there was a non-obvious incentive for the overseers to hire people from away.