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 ...
Nails it.
your figures or agri-business figures
anybody who is only paying ten bucks an hour and still can't make a damn good profit needs to get out of farming. PERIOD!
NOW, however, it's cool to be an illegal, so they aren't picking the fruit like they used to. Why should they toil and sweat when they can clear off tables and make beds instead?
As for the cherries, I don't buy them anymore because they are way too expensive.
sw
"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"
well noooooooow the truth is out! LMAO
tell your friends to get out of farming if they can't make a damn good living doing it!!
Nonsense. There are hoards of those waiting in a very long line to come here LEGALLY who would gladly pick up the slack.
Thanks for admitting I'm right.
"I was referring to H2A, which applies to seasonal agricultural workers. H2Bs are for temporary non-agricultural work, and they are limited in quanity."
Not according to the link I posted.
It clearly says
"the H2-B visa, which was designed for seasonal agricultural workers"
It isint place of orgin, where I grew up in the SF Bay Area, there were a large number of 3rd, 4th and 5th generation Mexican Americans that were sick of the insanity also, and were sick of how their long established, formerly working class neighborhoods have been trashed in the last 25 years. Just go to places such as East San Jose, many parts of Newark CA, Hayward CA and so on to see what has taken place. But hey, if you like increased crime, and increased urban problems so your precious employers can continue to have access to cheap labor, then do not cry when the politics of areas that have been severely impacted shifts to the left, as we have seen happen to California.
Again, employers who hire illegals do not deserve to be in business, and to me, they are no better than "independent businessmen" who sell illegal drugs. Your arguements do not wash.
Trying to change the subject, I see. But according to your previous post, the immigration status of the folks involved was not the apparent cause, because the neighborhoods "went" regardless of whether the new folks were legal or illegal. So if you really believe what you said, then you must attribute the decline of these neighborhoods to something other than immigration status.....
Again, employers who hire illegals do not deserve to be in business, and to me, they are no better than "independent businessmen" who sell illegal drugs. Your arguements do not wash.
If apples = illegal drugs in your world, there's no hope for a rational conversation.
I will go as far to say is I hope businessmen/fermaners/managers who hire illegals, and have basically causd the situation we have today experience very painful and expensive lessons in the next few years. It will be entertaining to see "people" such as these howl in pain and go bankrupt.
ralph nader, is that you?
Apples arent illegal, using illegal labor to pick them is ILLEGAL. The farmers that use ILLEGAL labor to pick crops are no better in terms of morals that drug dealers that sell ILLEGAL drugs. Illegal means Illegal, and no man has a right to pick and choose what laws he has to follow, especially when use of illegal labor is technically considered a fellony.
As for the neighborhoods I mentioned, while its not politically correct to say this, I will say outright that the flood of illegal, and yes, in many cases even legal, immigrants who are mostly uneducated did cause a severe decline in the neighborhoods I mentioned, but of course, Free Republic is thankfully not about being politically correct.
Let's ban apples then, because you hate the ethnicity of those who pick them.
Those evil apples and damn Johnny Appleseed, they are the ruination of America.
"right?"
you and "your friends" need to go back to school and take English comprehension.
Because no where did I admit that "you were right!"
Then after completing English comprehension and business administration, marketing & sales maybe, just maybe you and "your friends" could make a living doing something else and how to operate another business profitably because they obviously don't know how to operate a farm profitably.
Now, that is R...I...G...H...T
Did I mention ethnic orgin? Illegal labor means anyone who is in the US illegally, though based on your thousands of other posts on the subject, I doubt you understabnd it. As other posters have said Dane, you really do your side quite a bit of harm because of your massive lapes in use of logic and critical thinking ability.
By the way, the Mexican-Americans who I knew, who I grew up with, who I worked with, whose familes been in the US longer than my mine have been share my views on illegal immigration, do you call them racist as well?
Have you come up with that 50 BILLION DOLLARS yet, genius?
LMAO
In a way, farmers who need illegal immigration to make ends meet are much like the infamous welfare queens that Reagan mentioned in the 1980 election campaign, just the farmers get an indirect subsidy by the non enforcement of immigration laws.
I do understand, you think that that someone who grows and the help he hires to market a Macintosh apple is the moral equivalent of a heroin dealer.
It's warped moral equivalence thinking, but it is easy to understand ala the warped thinking of such a liberal such as hillary.
Give thanks to that "welfare queen" the next time you have a piece of apple pie.
No equivlence, though you seem to not understand that ILLEGAL means ILLEGAL. Picking and chooseing what laws to follow smacks of relativizm.
By the way, I would be willing to pay more for apple pies if it means I pay less in the way of local taxes to deal with social services for ILLEGALS, of course this has been mentioned to you many times by dozens of other posters. Of the thousands of freepers Dane, your posts stand out for an extreme lack of logic and critical thinking ability.
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