Posted on 08/30/2006 11:14:35 AM PDT by SJackson
WAPATO, Yakima County — Heinz Humann was late this year. Later than he's ever been.
His workers finished thinning out apple and pear trees to prepare for the harvest in mid-August. But they should have been finished a month earlier. The past few months, it's been tough for Humann to find enough workers for what he can afford to pay. He's had plenty of work, he says. But it seems there's no one willing to do it.
Add to that the other issues that hurt his bottom line, such as taxes and environmental regulations, and "I can see the writing on the wall," he says.
"We're doomed."
Like Humann, apple growers all over Washington this summer are complaining that a heated immigration debate in the U.S. has combined with a late cherry harvest to create a shortage of agricultural workers, perhaps the worst they've seen.
Evidence in the fields of Eastern Washington is so far anecdotal. But some guess that migrant workers may be attracted away by higher-paying jobs. Others surmise that high gas prices have discouraged some workers from driving north after finishing harvests in California.
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
And you know that these jobs aren't availiable now to American teenagers how?
Or could it be you do not want to face the fact that modern American teenagers don't want these jobs.
BTW, I lived a comfortable life as as a child but I still took a job as a busboy(and that was a disgusting job, people are pigs at restaurants) at 16, because that is what my peers were doing at the time.
Today's precious progengy of the baby boomer generation look down at such things, so before you go bashing people doing the actual dirty jobs, maybe you should look in the mirror.
The problem is not time-to-issue. So few are issued they can be processed quickly (well, by INS standards, or whatever they're called these days). The problem is the restrictions are so onerous that the visas are useless - which is why so few are applied for. The links explain that.
Thank you for your reply. I couldn't agree more.
In my lifetime I have worked a job or two that weren't my first choices, but I refused to rely on unemployment or government assistance. There is absolutely nothing wrong with waiting for the 'right opportunity' to come along ... but don't expect somebody else to carry you while you wait. Get a job and at least try to pay your way.
I read your profile page and would like to FReepmail you some comments, if you don't mind.
If illegal migrant workers are available, legal migrant workers will be available. They'll just cost more.
And thus, we have summer recess!! There are hundreds of circa 1800 diaries saying "I went to school during the winter".
LOL! Probably because you don't understand your own position on the matter.
Are you concerned about illegal immigration because it's "illegal," or are you concerned about it for some other, better reason? Congress could make these folks "legal" tomorrow. And I'll bet you'd complain about it. Why?
"I read your profile page and would like to FReepmail you some comments, if you don't mind".
"Perhaps you need to update your knowledge in order to understand current market conditions"
you must be talking to yourself. LMAO
My best friend for over 40 years OWNS A WHOLESALE PRODUCE BUSINESS.
You obviously have never purchased fruit & vegetables from a farmer's market.
Anyone who is paying pickers ten bucks an hour TODAY and still can't make a verrrry nice profit needs to get out of farming.
"The relevant figure is that the growers receive only about 14-17% of the retail price."
Well according to Bill O'Reilly and some FReepers,
the oil companies are gouging making 10%!
So accepting your figures(which I don't), O'Reilly should be up in arms!
It's abusive when you see grown men folded into the back of a pick-up truck with a lid on top of the truck bed, covering the five to eight men packed like sardines in a can when it is 100 degrees outside. Not sure if the men were headed to Washington to pick apples and cherries or if they were headed to some construction site. But what I have seen is abusive and akin to what slaves went through in the bottom of boats in the 1700s and 1800s. It is disgraceful on the part of the folks who transport these people, and it's disgraceful on the part of the folks who wont keep these folks from doing this.
Maybe the "work" is not abusive. How much do these farmers pay????????
Never said it did, and I will thank you to stop putting words in my mouth. But in the case of illegal immigration, you really can't understand the issue without looking at the economics of it. And it's not just a matter of "showing no mercy" to employers who hire illegals: they do so for economic reasons, and it might be a good idea to figure out what those reasons are, and actually address those aspects of the problem.
saw first hand the extreme negative impact of illegal, and even in many cases, large amounts of legal immigration did to so many formerly middle/working class neighborhoods.
The emphasized portion suggest that the problem you're talking about has its roots in something other than immigration status. Perhaps you're bothered by their place of origin?
Or invest in machines that will do the work, as happened with cotton.
From your sources, Business Week (they’d simply open the borders to all laborers) even uses the work onerous.
Yet the required paperwork can be onerous, since it requires employers to establish that they cannot fill those jobs with domestic labor. So companies simply hire whom-ever shows up for work, knowing that, with few exceptions, they probably won't be prosecuted for putting illegal aliens on their payroll.
Sorry, that shouldn’t be a problem. Proponents of illegal labor argue that Americans won’t do the jobs. Running a newspaper ad for 3 (?-I think that’s the requirement) weeks shouldn’t be a problem. Unless an American willing to work for locally prevailing wages, likely more than an illegal would cost and the same as a legal migrant, is a problem.
Your Palm Beach article notes
The program requires employers to pay workers' travel expenses into and out of the U.S. and to pay a wage commensurate with that of Americans working in the industry. Employers also must provide free housing for employees.
Yes, it does all those things. Takes money out of the hands of coyotes and assures Americans that migrants are living in suitable housing. The article fails to mention that if they aren’t returned to their housing, the employer has to feed the. And the worst, they have to pay the same wage as they’d pay Americans.
There’s nothing onerous there at all, you’ve simply reinforced my argument that the current system is abusive.
The real problem, as both articles note, legal migrant workers have to be paid the prevailing wage, to be transported and housed. Heck, you might as well hire an American. Illegals on the other hand work cheaper, pay their own living costs, and pay their own transportation. Breaking the law along the way.
And my best friends for over 40 years are orchardists. I'm willing to bet that they know far better than your friend how thin their margins are.
A favorite device of the MSM. Also a favorite device in small talk everywhere.
They're not "my" figures -- which you'd know if you had read from the link I provided to back up the figure.
FACTORS AFFECTING PROFITABILITY
In the past, ministries of agriculture and even NGOs worked mainly on improving agricultural production and yields. This involved carrying out field trials, testing varieties and developing improved production techniques. The extension officer's primary role was to advise and encourage farmers to use improved production technologies.
Although farmers do, of course, benefit from improved yields, their primary concern must be to make a reasonable living from their farm. They need to generate sufficient profit from their sales to be able to cover their living costs. The key issue for them is how to do this.
The main role of the extension officers should therefore be to help farmers farm more profitably. To do this they must have a basic understanding of the factors that influence profits. These are farm gate or market prices, volumes sold and costs.
Table 1 shows how small changes in these three factors have an effect on a farmer's profit. Improving the price obtained and the quantity sold have a greater impact on profitability than does increasing production.
Table 1(Click on link below for the chart)
The effect on profit of different levels of production, prices, sales and costs
http://www.fao.org/docrep/008/a0185e/a0185e03.htm
LOL! Elitisit" Come on rotty tell us of your teenage work experience.
Hell I'll never forget on every Friday night after bussing the tables after the 6-8 PM rush, around 9:55, 5 minutes before closing( another boatload of people would come in) and instead of getting out at 10:30, it would be 11;30.
Of course my best friend had a "non-dirty" job at the library set up by his dad, and always would complain how come I was late when we would go to Friday night parties. I had the car, btw.
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