Posted on 08/22/2007 10:25:14 PM PDT by neverdem
HAMPTONBURGH, N.Y., Aug. 16 — With a look of supreme satisfaction, Jeff Crist squinted at the Ginger Golds and Jonamacs ripening under an incandescent sun at his apple orchard here: the trees were so laden that they almost seemed to strain under the effort.
“It’s a vintage crop — a solid quality crop, which means good sugars in the apples,” he said. “They should eat very nicely, almost like a good wine.”
This is the third year in a row of near-perfect weather, and Mr. Crist, a fourth-generation apple grower, like many other growers in the Hudson Valley, is finally feeling secure after a disastrous string of harvests marred by early frost and hail. In fact, Mr. Crist is so bullish that he recently bought a 164-acre orchard nearby, bucking the decades-long trend of apple orchards being sold to housing developers.
But while weather conditions have cooperated and industry experts say demand for apples nationwide has approached an all-time high, there are new fears in New York and around the nation over whether there will be enough hands to pick the crop. This month, the Bush administration announced new measures to crack down on employers of illegal immigrants.
Nationwide, growers’ associations estimate that about 70 percent of farmworkers are illegal immigrants, many of them using fake Social Security numbers on their applications. Under the new rules, if the Social Security Administration finds that an applicant’s information does not match its database, employers could be required to fire the worker or risk being fined up to $10,000 for knowingly hiring an illegal immigrant.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
okay, so twenty million illegal aliens isn’t enough to pick apples? I wonder how many more millions are needed.
Pay me enough money and I will pick the damn things. I have done worse jobs in my life.
O NOES!!!!! NOBODY BUT MEXICANS CAN PICK APPLZ!!!!! PANIC!!!!
Aren’t there 40,000 mortgage brokers looking for work?
and high school students say 15 or 16 and up...perfect
I’m 43 and I’d consider it!
There is always a surplus of Prisoners to do the job.
America’s One-Million Nonviolent Prisoners
Institute researchers found, in total, it cost America $24 billion to incarcerate its 1 .2 million nonviolent offenders last year. The $24 billion figure is almost 50% larger than the entire $16.6 billion the federal government currently spends on a welfare program that serves 8.5 million people. The costs of incarcerating 1.2 million non-violent offenders is 6 times more than the federal government spent on child care for 1.25 million children. Previous JPI reports have found a nearly a dollar-for-dollar state and federal funding tradeoff between corrections and higher education
Our non violent prisoners would love to make three dollars an hour if they could keep a % of it. It’d teach em a work ethic too.
Win win.
http://www.cjcj.org/pubs/one_million/onemillionexec.html
There aren't enough farm workers because the illegals can earn far more in the construction industry, landscaping, restaurants, as janitors or any other jobs formerly done by Americans. Once they get a taste of easier work at better wages, why would they want to go back to stoop labor?
I am thinking elite troops of specialized helper monkeys but this might work as well:http://www.mindfully.org/Farm/2004/Cheap-Labor-Machines22mar04.htm
** Please note Jimmah Carter’s contribution, although not a good one. But then, that was the rule rather than the exception for Jimmah.
I could use the extra $ and exercise, meet ya in NY, I’m 50 so I’ll be a tad slower than you!
and/or great for welfare to work perhaps??
Are there not any states other then Florida that have a PRIDE program for it’s inmates?
http://www.pride-enterprises.org/
They could admit people to “pick your own” like strawberry farms sometimes do. Everyone would get an apple reacher tool, they would be charged so much a basket, and you may eat all you can on premises.
It would give those prisoners a few dollars to help them re-intergrate with society when they are released. In Florida, which uses inmate labor on the farms used to produce the food for much of the DOC, the chance to work at one of the farms through Pride is held out as a privilege to be earned for the inmates. I believe the inmate makes around 2.50 an hour. The employer wouldn’t have to pay benefits and medical is covered by the DOC.
I’m not sure that people on welfare would have the same incentive.
Any business whose success or failure depends solely on the labor of illegal aliens deserves to fail.
Sounds like they have too many apples...the owner better quit his bitchin’ and start pickin’.
I fell for that one too when our local strawberry farm was defending hiring "legal" temporary workers. In a recent article, they were complaining about the government crackdown, because they have "a lot of names that don't match up with the social security numbers". That told me all I needed to know -- they knew all along that many (if not most) of their workers were illegal aliens.
Aaaw look, it’s another sob story. Pass the kleenex.
There are plenty of kids in New York to pick that crop. Another way would be for Mr. Crist to advertise, and sell to folks bringing bushel baskets. Those apples sound delicious.
Is this one of those jobs that will be outsourced if we deport illegals?
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