Letters: Migrant labor and cheap food

Re “Bid for guest worker plan hits familiar barrier: politics,” Column, May 27

Steve Lopez cites some of the many reasons for the complicated and byzantine issues involving the supply of undocumented labor and immigration policy: Native-born residents are still virtually impossible to recruit; exploitative low wages and cruel working environments; and fears of crop losses.

One variable I have yet to read about is consumers’ demand for cheap groceries, regardless of the cost of growing and producing. How complicit is the customer in his insistence on a low purchase price that leaves growers, producers, shippers and grocers competing for an advantage at the insidious exploitation of the undocumented workers?

Peter Nelson

Claremont

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