HAMPTON
John Graham has been buying crabs and selling their sweet white meat from a plant on the Hampton waterfront for decades. He officially is retired but on Monday was working and steaming crabs - for free - worried that the family business may not survive.
"I keep running the numbers, and I just don't see how they can keep it going," Graham said during a break, his T-shirt soaked with sweat.
He described a three-headed threat to his company, Graham & Rollins Seafood Inc., and to the Virginia crab industry as a whole. The threats have struck at the same time this summer, like a perfect storm.
They are: a shortage of foreign workers, brought on by national political concerns about illegal immigration; market pressures from cheap and imported crabs, which increasingly are replacing locally caught crabs at restaurants, grocery stores and packing houses; and strict new regulations designed to protect dwindling crab populations in the Chesapeake Bay.
For the first time in years - "I honestly can't remember the last we did this," Graham said - the company has declared a "No Market" status.
The declaration, announced to a stable of local watermen who catch crabs for Graham & Rollins but with ripple effects touching the state industry, "basically means we can't buy any more crabs, so the guys might as well stay home," said his son, Johnny Graham, a company vice president.
At this time last year, more than 100 laborers, mostly from Mexico on temporary work visas called H2-Bs, picked through piles of crabs at the Hampton plant. This summer, without the visas, the company has mustered just 18 workers.
" We've got plenty of crabs - I'm getting calls all day asking if we want to buy more," the senior Graham said. "We just don't have anyone to pick them."
The same labor shortage is hampering operations at the few remaining crab-processing Plants in the state, according to Graham and other merchants. There used to be dozens of plants around the Bay, but today only a handful remain.
The labor shortage has become so acute that Graham is weighing an option of shipping Virginia crabs to Mexico for picking, then flying them back to Hampton for sale.
"It's all about volume," he said. "Without volume, we can't compete."
Without enough products to sell, the crab industry is being undercut by cheap imports, mostly from Indonesia, China, Malaysia and Mexico.
Crab meat produced in these countries is comparable in quality to Bay crabs, is more abundant and sells far below domestic prices, according to merchants.
David Bell buys Bay crabs directly from watermen, mostly on the Eastern Shore, and sells them to seafood markets and processing plants throughout the state.
Bell said fewer and fewer watermen are catching crabs these days, given the high costs of fuel and increasing frustration with state regulations. The result, he said, has been a "huge run of crabs the last few weeks, more than we can even sell."
"The funny thing is - if any of this can be considered funny - is that the governor keeps saying the Bay's empty of crabs," Bell said. "Well, I got news: It's not."
Greg Finney, an Eastern Shore waterman, said there are so many crabs to be had in the lower Bay, and so few packing houses ready to accept them, that he has been working under "basket limits" for more than a month now.
In short, he explained, merchants are imposing daily quotas on watermen because of a glutted marketplace.
"Our hands are tied," Finney said. "The processors are simply loaded up."
Back in Hampton, Graham hopes Congress again will allow seafood processors to hire foreign workers in picking houses. They had been coming to Hampton for 11 years, staying from roughly May to December - until last year.
An exemption granted to local processors did not survive in Washington, where lawmakers instead wanted to tackle immigration reform as a whole. But in the end, no reform package emerged, and Graham was left to try to hire local workers.
"Before, our pickers would bring their kids in, and they would learn how to crack claws, how to pick crabs," Graham said. "Now, they're learning how to do computers. They're just not interested in this job anymore."
He then chuckled wryly to himself.
"And that's why I'm in here today, working for free," Graham said.
Scott Harper, (757) 446-22340, scott.harper@pilotonline.com
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regulatory genocide
As a advocate for the blue crab, the problem is not so much greed, though this is acknowldeged, but regulatory genocide. Until very recently the taking of the blue crab by commercial watermen was regulated loosely. It allowed the unlimited taking of males and non-sponge females 5" or above. Regulations previously allowed the dredging of the winter bedded female that are serial spawners. Regulations allow the taking of 3 1/2" immatures as peelers for bait for softshelled sandwiches. What other species allows for the taking of both reproductive sexes and immatures? Though more mobil than the oyster, the crab faces the same uncertain future. The watermen bitterly complain about their operating costs ignoring the fact that all farmers have high machinery and operating costs too, but farmers are responsible for planting the seed or breeding the animals that generates a profit. And wat
Do your research before you judge this issue
The problem is the public does not understand the whole issue. All they know is what they are feed by the media. If something doesn't happen soon, and entire industry will be put out of business. Even if the crab population is decline, the watermen should not be made a scapegoat.
Not enough has been done to curb predation and the pollution of the Chesapeake Bay. The blue crab is an icon of this region and so is the watermen. Has anyone noticed that the surveys are paid for by the government? There something that doesn't add up. Before you criticize a watermen or anyone in the industry do you research.
Scott Harper still reporting at the top of his liberal game
The title says it all.
By the way, greed did get us here. It is was it is.
Redskin44
Care to share the crab supplier info? I'd be happy to pay $50 for a bushel!
Greed vs Need
Well it seems to me that we have a Greed vs Need situation here. Greed coming from the crab fishermen and processors, vice the need to locally motivated unemployed people seeking work and decent pay. Yep thats right, its greed when the fishermen and processors try and undercut their workers just so they can cut a higher profit. And its just plain lazy, that the unemployment market is as high as it is, especially when theres such a demand for laborers in this field.
Whats the average dollar/hour wage that processors and fishermen pay their workers anyway? Because at $160/lbs, I definitely need to get into this market. Especially is I can just pay someone around $3.00/hour to do this strenous labor for me while I sit around and collect that fat check off their hard earned labor.
Get with the program, stop out sourcing and get the jobs to the local community before you start complaining about not enough foreign labor. Maybe if the jobs were kept here, we could actually afford to fix these roads around the area. And maybe just maybe, boost the local economy alittle bit. Just my 2 cents.
vbeach
You've spend way to much time on cnn listening to al gorp.
More tangled than a backlash
Americans have been paying a lower percentage of their income for food than ever before and the cheap food (and products) bubble is already bursting. The carbon footprint from outsourcing and "efficient" production (of both plants and meat) is, ironically, destroying our food supply. Now we're paying for the eco cleanup and the medical bills for consuming food-like substances from around the world. Immigrants travel thousands of miles, at their own expense, to accept hard work for low wages, and we've financially enjoyed the exploitation. We protest, but we ultimately accept the proposal; we vote with our dollars. Shopping for fair trade, organic and local products is time consuming, but it's a start. Some restaurants in CA list on the menu where each seafood selection was caught and avoid endangered species. What hard choices are we willing to make to restore a balance?
No Gab
No ignorance. I guess we're just tired of people whining and blaming everyone else for their problems. Our country is addicted to reality TV and Prozac. In the meantime, Richmond and D.C. are sticking it to us via fiscal irresponsibility and higher taxes.
Ignorance
Greed? Is that what so many of you think is going on here? Have any of you ever worked on a commercial crab boat or in a crab picking house? It is FAR from easy work. Do you know what it costs to run one of those boats?
The migrant workers on visas are not paid substandard wages, employer must pay according to US standards and with hold the appropriate taxes.
Walk a mile in these peoples shoes before you criticize how they earn a living, at least they are doing that, unlike the welfare receipients who think picking crabs is beneath them.
Agree with Average Joe
Went to buy some crabs for a July 4th get-together. $130 a bushel. You are smoking crack if you think I'm going to buy a bushel for $130. After some digging I found the number of a crabber-acquintance who hooked me up at $40 for a bushel. It's greed on the industry's part and it's also politicians not protecting American industry from imports. Throw in the entitlement and welfare programs to douse the incentive for the unemployed locals to get a job. Just one big mess brought on by the government and society that we deserve. But hey things are looking up, American Idol getting ready to fire back up!
STOP using cheap labor. Have
STOP using cheap labor. Have you ever thought about using students who, during the summer, are trying to find part-time work just to earn a little cash? This way, you're keeping the business locally and the laborers are from right here earning local money! That's your community service obligation!yeah right...
The labor shortage has become so acute .....
...with all those fat checks and food stamps available to the "non working class"
nothing but greed
the crabbers have worked themselves out of jobs by not regulating your industry just plain greed. and the vendors have used cheap labor for so long you haven't learned how to regulate your own finances.stop using the excuse foreign labor,you are cheapskates and try to cut corners any way you can and now you will have to hire folks at a reasonable labor rate.ship the crabs to Mexico just another out source thing all the big company's do now.this country has gone to the crapper because of this mindset,have goods made abroad and shipped back here for who to buy.eventually there wont be anything made here at all and no one will be able to afford anything,and who are your consumers going to be then?what we need is for our politicians to not be able to make it a business to be a politician.you are elected but most of you only serve your own greed.
Really?
people pay for crabs?
$$$$Crabs$$$$
$160.00 a bushel for Jimmies could be the problem.
Go figure
Blame the shortage of illegal immigrants as a reason for your company to go under. I see. So for years you've been paying well below minimum wage in order to boost your profit margin. Of course these people won't complain and how much of it was under the table so taxes didn't have to be paid on the money those people earned? Simply disgraceful!!!!!
Hypocrites alive and well.
It's funny how it's greed when other people want to earn a decent living.
So shipping the crabs to Mexico then bringing the finished product would be a smart business move, ha ha ha ha ha if you like backfin at $40 a pound. How about if like the countries the said labor pool was from the system removed the incentive not to work! Bring back the motivating factors that make people get a job and want to succeed in life and stop penalizing those who do work and rewarding those who choose not to.
Dennis, socialist?
Dennis, socialist?
How much do you pay?
I'm curious as to how much the outside workers were being paid an hour. A smart business man would send them down to Mexico to have them picked and then shipped back. I haven't been able to find any job postings for crabbers, either...might be why no one is filling the jobs.
Greed
I went to price some crabs for a "pickin' party" and am still in shock at the horendous price these folks want for a bushel of crabs...the main problem the crabbers have is greed...