Posted on 09/18/2024 4:55:19 AM PDT by Cronos
The organic farm shop is a paradise for wealthy Germans. Behind the scenes, we pick and chop vegetables until we’re on the point of collapse ... they guaranteed work for at least 10 hours a day and that I would be paid €6.20 (£5.27) an hour. I would have to pay the agency a fee of €200 and a one-off sum of €105 for my bed. I would buy and cook my own food. They also told me to bring boots and rubber gloves.
...
The contract I sign on about day three probably corresponds to the German labour code. But I receive two work report sheets. On one I write down the actual hours worked and on the other, the official sheet, I sign those that are recorded: a maximum of 10 hours of work a day, six days a week. I’d already heard about double reporting, but here they present it to me as a matter of course. No one explains what is going on. According to the official record, I might work until 4pm today, and there was no work at all on Sunday.
... One of the worst things about this job is that no one can tell you when the shift will end. “Please understand,” one of the women replied when I ask if we would get Sunday afternoon off, “that there are no working hours, there is no Monday to Friday. Here they just tell you to go to work, and you never know when it’s going to end.”
... Not only is the work physically demanding, but you are on your feet for 14 hours a day.
It’s strange how normal this weird existence seems after a while. Maybe that’s because by the evening, everyone is completely exhausted.
(Excerpt) Read more at theguardian.com ...
This sounds like hard, long work and I'm going to guess much cheaper than robot labor.
In the USA it is the same with Mexican labor - the organic farms etc. would collapse without illegal migrants.
You Vill Dig Untivl Vee Tell you to shtop digging!!!
I don’t understand why people can’t work their own countries’ farms.
That’s because their goal is not to work, their goal is to escape their present situation (probably unrelated to work).
The old company store routine - it take 50 hours of work before one is out of debt - according to the article - there likely are more hidden fees.
There is a two tiered ag worker situation in US, you’ve got the H2A guest worker program that is expensive, restrictive, and in very high demand...so many people from all over vying for a work visa. And then you have the illegals and whatever their situation is. I know more farms would participate in the H2A program if DOL didn’t suck so much and the fees were less. Regardless, you are correct, no foreigners = a lot less farm workers.
hidek “That’s because their goal is not to work, their goal is to escape their present situation (probably unrelated to work).”
I don’t think so, based on the (limited) experience talking to such farmhands.
I’ve spoken to Mexicans coming to the US (nearly 20 years ago), Indians coming to Poland and Poles who went to GErmany in the early 2000s.
All went because the money they got abroad was far more than they got at home.
The ones who really screwed these people over were the “agents” - who were invariably of their own nationality — Punjabi agents screwing over Punjabis, Mexican agents damning Mexicans, Polish agents, Romanian agents targeting Poles and Romanians.
So if the Department of labor cut out the red tape, more farms about participate in the H2A program?
That sounds like a win-win for everyone except consumers who would have to pay more. But I think it would be better.
What is your opinion?
Oh wow...it never ends.
Pro Deep State Ukrainian slavery and pro cheap labor express and mass migration. You have no shame Cronos.
In regard to Mexicans specifically, you are correct. I know first hand. Hell can not be too big.
The EU makes life hell for Brits wanting out of the EU but apparently does nothing about the lousy labor conditions on EU farms.
“the organic farms etc. would collapse without illegal migrants.”
My opinion on Mexicans has changed ever since the massive explosion of illegals from all countries during the Biden/Harris regime’s term in office. The Biden/Harris illegals are from our enemies, are mostly military aged, many are criminals, many are gang members, and few of them offer anything of value to America. They are here to change America to the same hell hole they came from and that’s exactly what the rats want.
Most of the Mexican illegals that come here to work are basically good people that never engage in crime, are here to earn a better living and probably send most of their money home. The vast majority of these are not a threat to America, unless given the vote.
When Trump gets back into the WH and starts the mass deportations, I hope the good Mexican illegals are allowed to stay. Somehow or another let them be legal migrant workers.
The core belief always comes back to: "We need negro slaves -- how else will that cotton get picked??"
Throughout history, most economies around the world have essentially been built on top of slavery. We need to adjust our thinking in one of three ways:
1) Slavery is OK.
2) Prices need to rise to whatever level is sufficient to pay farm workers a wage at which they will be pleased to go out into the fields of their home country and work all day in the sun.
3) Robots are fine.
Right now, in the US and in most other countries, it seems like Choice #1 (or near equivalent) is the popular answer.
Anyone who actually opposes slavery needs to embrace either #2 or #3.
Availability of slaves stifles innovation of robotics.
We need to make it so a family of 4 can make a comfortable living on 160 acres. These mega farms are nothing more than the old communist state farms of the old USSR except they are owned by corporations or billionaires.
Sounds similar to the work poor people had to do back in 1962 Ozarks.
Picking green beans, from sun up to sun down, a penny a pound. If after a rain the beans were heavy and you might make $5 on a good day. If after a dry spell you never made more than $2.80 even though you picked the same amount of beans.
In looking around at all those workers there were women with kids trying to make a few dollars a day while the husband was at his agricultural minimum pay job. All poor white people where we lived doing the picking.
It was so hot my brother passed out in the field. We realized the only way out was to get better educated and go some place where the jobs were better. My brother did it by working his way through college. My escape came in the form of a letter...”Greetings from the President of the United States.”
In essence, there’s a lot of this that goes on around the world. Go to Saudi Arabia, Emirates, etc.; and you be hard pressed to find manual labor being done by the natives. That type of work is for the imported labor.
One company I deal has 18 languages spoken in their company. The labor is from Thailand, Phillipines, India, Malaysia, etc. All of the natives...they were in management.
I worked MUCH longer hours for four summers at a cannery in Alaska. My longest paid week was for 121 1/2 hours - mandatory 1/2 hour break for breakfast, lunch & dinner. Not much sleep, room and board was provided though.
My base wage was $6.50 and this was in the late 80’s.
Your post does make good sense.
Migrant works might be considered slaves. But the migrant workers, regardless of what countries that have them, are technically not slaves as they are free to come and go as they please. The lesser wage they work for is better than what they can get at home so they are OK with that.
It would be ideal to get our own citizens to do these jobs, but in today’s society that simply will never happen as many of the younger generations simply do not want to work at all, even if the pay is very high.
The rats are taking advantage of this by saying the illegals will fill the gap they created.
Oh how we need Donald Trump to come in and clean house.
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