Rios

In this case we uphold a superior court ruling that nine migrant farmworkers were “available for work” as required by statute, despite their return to their permanent homes in Texas during the off-season, and thus were eligible for unemployment insurance benefits.

The nine farmworkers all maintain permanent homes in the lower Rio Grande Valley area of Texas. On a yearly basis, for as many as 25 years, each has migrated to California to perform seasonal agricultural work from April through September or October. They return home to Texas in the fall, when the state migrant labor camps close and seasonal work becomes scarce.

The present case arose when the farmworkers applied for unemployment insurance benefits in 1981. Upon their return to Texas that fall they vigorously sought agricultural employment, but were largely unsuccessful because the Texas employers had already hired local workers and preferred *493 not to hire migrant laborers. The farmworkers were willing to accept non-agricultural work, but their previous experience had been limited to farm labor.

The California Employment Development Department (CEDD) denied benefits to all nine farmworkers, reasoning that…