Posted on 04/06/2008 8:00:56 PM PDT by Tennessee Nana
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
Expensive workers...
Foreign labor is entitled to twice the wages American workers get ????
PING
This is interesting — the reason given in the article to prefer the H2A workers is that they are dependable, not cheap.
I can see how this is preferable — in my own company we really switched to a model for hiring temps where they are required to work until we decide to let them go, as opposed to before when they had to leave after a year. Our productivity is so much higher because we don’t have to retrain new people every time.
Americans aren’t hungry enough. At one time in our history they would have fought to keep these jobs.
It is a back-breaking job, leaving you drenched. It is also a job virtually all young adults could learn from.
I much more enjoyed roguing, detasseling, and walking beans to the bailing work.
Such farm jobs are capable of creating good character in the kids who stay through the summer. We don't need immigrants, who then become illegals when overstaying their visa, to do it. It prevents our our population from learning the value of a good day's work.
Some of those 'workers' know exactly when their unemployment runs out. It's racket with some 'workers'. There is a local chicken processing plant that had about 1/2 of the factory that was doing that. They switched to Mexicans too.
At least, they are here legally.
How can they be temps if they keep working for you longer than a year?
I thought Federal law required you to hire them after six months or let them go, that way a company could benefit from the temporary worker law as opposed to the drawbacks and expense of hiring someone permanent?
They could pay this to prisoners who could in turn pay room and board and send money home to family and victim. The farmers would get their help and prisons would be self sufficient.
Flame away gang but I see the farmers’ point. If locals (who would probably cost less) aren’t dependable then what is the farmer to do? The woman is looking for “Supplemental Income” what is the guarantee that she is in it for the long run?
This is a legal program that actually seems to be working.
I picked apples and graded tobacco one summmer and fall..
What you say makes some sense but we are talking farm labor here. I know who should fill this so-called labor shortage. The students in the area sitting on their a$$es playing video games and some with nothing better to do than cause trouble.
I don't know if any of you have ever done a job called "dropping sticks" in tobacco before, but, I can guarantee if you have, you don't want to do it again. You have to put enough sticks on your shoulders to lay sticks for the cutters down rows that begin to seem a mile long. It leaves whelps on your shoulders from the many heavy loads trudging through the mud all day.
My kids are going to do it when they are old enough. Anyone is smart enough to do it and yet it was one of my most memorable educational experiences. I learned very quickly doing that for a month, on various farms, that screwing around in school was no longer an option for me. That and working summers with my dad pouring concrete and I was shooting for 4.0 GPA's in a hurry. :)
Sounds like you and I both had an epiphany at a very early age, lol. :)
The money is a whole lot more than many make around here. It’s hard, physical work though.
I agree!! Prisoners need to give something back to society- what better way than by working to produce food and help keep farming cost effective?
I do think agriculture is to blame for their worker issues though. My family worked in ag. jobs years ago and we were forced out of those jobs because farmers and ranchers decided to hire illegals. Not only did they save on the payroll taxes, but the illegals would tolerate bad/dangerous working conditions and really terrible living conditions. Many ag. owners refused to hire citizens for many years- so it is no surprise that they have a hard time now. Working ag. jobs is something you generally learn working beside your parents- it’s just not part of the culture now- but there were plenty of willing citizen workers (at least in my part of the country) when owners pushed them out in favor of illegals.
Ping!
“I’ve done hard physical labor most of my life as have many Freepers, I’d bet. “
Guilty.
Believe it or not, I have worked for this very farmer, helping him set tomato plants in the 95 degree southern heat with the humdidity to boot.
I believe his exact words were:
“Wuh-wuh-work like your ass is on f-f-fire, boy!”
He’s a character alright. And has the work ethic of 3 men. He’s made a good living for himself this way, though. Has his own markets and the like, and he’s built a name for himself in the area. He’e established his name in pumpkins, for instance, and the local community knows where to go on Halloween.
And yeah, there’s plenty of local help. They’re just not going to put in the hard labor that he requires for those kind of wages. There are a lot of local jobs in the area. Maryville is a town of 35,000 or so and growing. Knoxville is 30-minutes or so up the road, and there you’ve got a city of 250,000 in the metro. You can bet that I found my way to life guarding at the local country club and swim coaching in the mornings.
Lifestyle, lifestyle, lifestyle. And near equal pay when it was all said and done. Most kids in the area work a job. Lots of them open lawn mowing businesses or the like.
Working for Albert? There are much less strenuous ways of putting some money in the bank...that’s for sure!! :)
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