Farmworkers and Laborers

Number of Workers Requested:  62

The job requires a minimum of three months? experience in tasks associated with farm experience. The job requires extensive standing and walking. Workers are frequently required to use their hands and arms to handle, feel, reach, climb or balance. Workers are occasionally required to stoop, kneel, crouch, or crawl under trellis wires. Workers must be able to lift/carry up to 60 lbs throughout the course of the day. Thinning: Thinning is a manual process used as part of orchard maintenance to control the size and quality of grown fruit. All workers will be provided with appropriate training to supervisors to ensure proper techniques for thinning are utilized. Workers must have the ability to pick up, use and safely handle a 16-foot orchard ladder weighing approximately 40 pounds to perform thinning tasks. Thinning requires the worker to remove, in some cases but not limited to, the smallest fruit from within a cluster of other fruits. Workers will be expected to be able to identify and remove fruit that is misshapen, damaged and/or with other quality problems as directed by supervisors. Pruning: Workers may be required to prune numerous varieties of apple trees according to established company procedures based on the difference in the treatment of different varieties. Workers are required to possess or acquire pruning skills in order to be able to correctly identify and remove branches which rub against each other, downward-growing branches, shaded interior branches, stubs or broken branches, dead wood and shoots/suckers and selectively remove diseased limbs and branches due to fire blight and/or bacterial canker with hand pruning saws and dippers, and pole pruners. Pruning may occasionally require workers to use chain saws or other mechanized equipment. While pruning, workers will be required to perform work for long periods of time using a variety of pruning equipment, including hand shears, hand loppers, hand saws and 16-foot ladders. Workers pruning apple trees may be required to selectively prune only trees of a certain size as instructed by the supervisor. Apple Harvest: Quality is essential to the apple harvest. Many different varieties of apples will be picked according to established company procedures based on the end use (spot picking for fresh, small percentage of culls for processing). To ensure quality, workers must be able to differentiate between colors accurately to perform color-specific picking. Workers must also be able to carry and pick from 16-foot ladder and be able to carry up to 60 pounds. Pear Harvest: To ensure quality, workers must! tie able to differentiate between colors accurately to perform color-specific picking. Workers must also be able to carry and pick from 16-foot ladder and be able to carry up to 60 pounds. Workers will select hard, large fruits and pull them from the branches then place them in a bag worn around their shoulders. The stem should easily separate from the tree; if the stem resists, give the pear more time on the branch. Leave less mature pears to continue to ripen during the season. Once the bag is full, the worker transfers the fruit to the designated area. Peach Harvest: Workers must be able to carry and pick from 16-foot ladder and be able to carry up to 60 pounds. Workers will select ripe fruit based on a creamy yellow background color and place them in a bag worn around their shoulders. Once the bag is full, the worker transfers the fruit to the designated area. Workers must make certain to the fruit is harvested properly and handled as easily as possible. Since all the fruit on a tree doesn’t ripen at one time, the same picking group will generally pick a field five times with two to three days between pickings. Equipment Operator: Worker will safely operate tractor and other farm vehicles as directed.