Oyster industry looks to Mexico to fill shucker shortage

NEW ORLEANS -- There are still plenty of oysters -- the problem is a shortage of shuckers.

With old-time shuckers dying out and few locals interested in the grueling job of prying open oysters, the Gulf Coast industry says it's in trouble unless it gets greater freedom to bring in workers from Mexico.

"It's piece work, but a good shucker can earn $12 to $15 an hour," said Sal Sunseri, owner of P&J Oyster Co. in the French Quarter in New Orleans. "But the younger generation is not interested in this type of hard, physical labor."

Sunseri is applying to get work visas for six immigrant shuckers, an expense that could run up to $1,500 for each worker. Industry officials say that's too much money for many operations around the Gulf.

"We're just trying to relax the laws a little bit -- it just takes so much paperwork," said Teddy Busick, chairman of the Gulf Oyster Industry Council and a partner in the Ole Biloxi Shrimp and Oyster Co. in Biloxi, Miss.

For the most part, oysters still are shucked by hand.

Shuckers wear a heavy leather glove on one hand and they whack the oyster shell with a hammer. Then, they pry the shell open with a knife, and scrape the oyster into a pot to be taken into another room for processing.

'It's an art'

A good shucker can do up to 15 sacks a day, with 250 oysters in a sack. At P&J, 10 shuckers open 30,000 oysters a day.

"It's dirty but somebody's got to do it," said Ervin St. Amand, an 11-year veteran who makes about $70 for a six-hour day at P&J. "Not too many people know the trade. It's not as easy as it looks. It's an art."

At many plants, shuckers start before dawn and work until noon, a schedule that has suited many second-earners like mothers and young people.

In Louisiana, where a third of all U.S. oysters are grown, immigrants -- from Slavs to Spanish -- have been a staple in the harvesting and processing of the delicacy seafood. Vietnamese later became the workers of choice in south Louisiana, but the labor pool is drying up.

"There's not been an influx of a new generation of people willing to start at the bottom and work their way up," said Mike Voisin, chairman of the Louisiana Oyster Task Force and co-owner of Motivatit Seafoods Inc. in Houma.

Sanby Tran, a Vietnamese immigrant who has worked as a shucker for 20 years and now works at P&J, said her six children do not want to follow her in the job. "It's too hard," she said.

Louisiana officials estimate state oyster production creates about 10,000 jobs and generates $266 million a year.

Oyster processors and growers fear tighter restrictions on immigration since the Sept. 11 attacks are curtailing the industry's ability to grow and stay competitive. Oystermen said they are not seeking to exploit cheap labor, but create a new class of shuckers.

"We need more consistency in employees -- we want them to stay," Voisin said. "There's plenty of space."