Posted on 06/25/2010 10:13:56 AM PDT by Chi-townChief
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — In a tongue-in-cheek call for immigration reform, farm workers are teaming up with comedian Stephen Colbert in a challenge to unemployed Americans: Come on, take our jobs.
Farm workers are tired of being blamed by politicians and anti-immigrant activists for taking work that should go to Americans and dragging down the economy, said Arturo Rodriguez, the president of the United Farm Workers of America.
So the group is encouraging the unemployed — and any Washington pundits who want to join them — to apply for the some of thousands of agricultural jobs being posted with state agencies as harvest season begins.
All applicants need to do is fill out an online form under the banner "I want to be a farm worker" at www.takeourjobs.org, and experienced field hands will train them and connect them to farms.
Three out of four farm workers in the U.S. were born abroad, and more than half are illegal immigrants, according to the Labor Department.
Proponents of tougher immigration laws have argued that farmers have become used to cheap labor. The problem with the UFW's proposition, they argue, is that growers don't want to raise wages and improve working conditions enough to attract Americans.
In either case, those who have done the job have some words of advice for applicants.
First, dress appropriately. During summer, when the harvest of fruits and vegetables is in full swing in California's Central Valley, temperatures hover in the triple digits. Heat exhaustion is one of the reasons farm labor consistently makes the Bureau of Labor Statistics' top ten list of the nation's most dangerous jobs.
Second, expect long days. Growers have a small window to pick fruit before it is overripe; work starts before dawn and goes on for 12 or more hours.
And don't count on a big paycheck. Farm workers are excluded from federal overtime provisions, and small farms don't even have to pay the minimum wage. Fifteen states don't require farm labor to be covered by workers compensation laws.
Any takers?
"The reality is farmworkers who are here today aren't taking any American jobs away. They work in often unbearable situations," Rodriguez said. "I don't think there will be many takers, but the offer is being made. Let's see what happens."
To highlight just how unlikely the prospect of Americans lining up to pick strawberries or grapes is, Comedy Central's "Colbert Report" plans to feature the "Take Our Jobs" campaign on July 8. Requests to Comedy Central and Colbert for comment on the nature of the collaboration weren't immediately answered.
Another way of tackling the issue is to strengthen immigration enforcement, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, which supports strict immigration laws.
It's an idea that might not end up on Comedy Central, but reducing the pool of farm workers would force growers to improve working conditions and raise wages.
"They're daring the American people to get by without farm workers," he said. "What I'm saying is, 'Let's take them up on that and call their bluff.'"
The campaign is being played for jokes, but the need to secure the right to work for immigrants who are here is serious business, said Michael Rubio, supervisor in Kern County, one of the biggest ag producing counties in the nation.
"Our county, our economy, rely heavily on the work of immigrant and unauthorized workers," he said. "I would encourage all our national leaders to come visit Kern County and to spend one day, or even half a day, in the shoes of these farm workers."
Hopefully, the message will go down easier with some laughs, said Manuel Cunha, president of the California grower association Nisei Farmers League, who was not a part of the campaign.
"If you don't add some humor to this, it's enough to get you drinking, and I don't mean Pepsi," Cunha said, dismissing the idea that Americans would take up the farm workers' offer.
California's agriculture industry launched a similar campaign in 1998, hoping to recruit welfare recipients and unemployed workers to work on farms, he said. Three people showed up.
"Give us a legal, qualified work force. Right now, farmers don't know from day to day if they're going to get hammered by ICE," he said, referring to U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. "What happens to my labor pool?"
His organization supports AgJobs, a bill currently in the Senate which would allow those who have worked in U.S. agriculture for at least 150 days in the previous two years to get legal status.
The bill has been proposed in various forms since the late 1990s, with backing from the United Farm Workers of America and other farming groups, but has never passed.
Politicians' and advocates' perspectives on the matter might change if they were to take up the farm workers' offer, said Rubio from Bakersfield.
"The view and the temperature is much different from a row in a field than from inside an air conditioned office," he said. "Is it a challenge? Most certainly, yes. Come on down."
And to that one can add the little fact that Americans/Europeans have to pay taxes, pay for their own health insurance and so on.
This is the reason we see immigrants take over low-paying jobs and cash-businesses in country after country. If there is a business where one has the opportunity to cheat on taxes chances are it will be dominated by immigrants. And thus the little corner shops are replaced by foreign versions, taxis become dominated by foreigners who have no idea where anything is etc...
An American would actually be left with less money than an illegal for doing the same work for the same pay.
And having said all I just said, I wonder what would happen if the “other side” of this issue (whatever or whoever that is)were to propose some version of the Guest Worker program
that would make provisions for citizenship, be fair, and satisfy a lot more interests than what we have now (the most divisive and contentious issue in the nation today),
I wonder just how the Open Borders crowd would take it, however reasonable?
No, they’d fight it tooth and nail, because ultimately , what they want is amnesty, and what amnesty means is guaranteed votes for the Left in perpetuity.
” I think it should be targeted to those on welfare.”
Eliminate all welfare and there will be plenty of stoop labor available!
Welfare, food stamps, and subsidized housing is criminal!
If you stopped entitlements, these would be filled.
So many people showed up for a chance to make 8-9 bucks an hour, they were only able to work about 2 & 1/2 hours before the bins were full.
Screw McCain and and ALL Amnesty types, B#stards, all of them.
Stop welfare payments to able bodied people. Hunger is a good motivator.
What about the terrorists among the tens of millions of illegal aliens in our country Colbert? Can I have one of their jobs? I’m real good at shooting and blowing up stuff.
Ah! Things I used to do when I was a lot younger. Get on the berry bus, bust your butt all day, get the card punched for each flat, cash it at the end of the day.
Lots of us used to do that as kids. It builds character and teaches you to get an education because you don't want to do that for the rest of your life. Also helps you learn Spanish which is becoming increasingly useful to know.
Its a pity that the berry buses don't run anymore like they used to....
Exactly.
A grower would recoup his investment in mechanized harvesting in a season or two.
AND the tax payers wouldn't be on the hook for all the handouts illegals line up for.
So long as farmers can pass a lot of their expenses off on the tax payer, the investment in technology isn't so attractive.
You’re right, but there’s another angle. Somewhere between $5 and $10 and hour it probably makes sense for the farmer to say to hell with it and automate everything.
So the illegals are not taking jobs from mythical American farm laborers, but from skilled American tradesmen working for Caterpillar and International Harvester.
And anticipating the next argument, Oh yes, all of these jobs can be automated. If we can automate cotton picking, we can automate whatever this is...
I couldn’t get a teenager to wash my car for twenty bucks. Last week.
End this exception, you'll see more Americans willing to do this-but we know congress would never do that, don't we?
The fact is that even if these jobs were fairly compensated and working conditions were not awful, few Americans would take them, because most unemployed Americans do not live anywhere near California farmland. No one is going to travel hundreds or thousands of miles across the US to get a job that pays (at the top end) minimum wage. The vast majority of unemployed people live in or near major cities, and relocating is very expensive.
They aren't 'your jobs'! They belong to the EMPLOYER!
>>Work to fill one basket of strawberries and you’ll get an idea how hard it is to do, how long it takes, and what you’ll take to work that hard for that long. <<
We did it yesterday! Picked 30 pounds at 1:00 in the afternoon. And I’m freakin 49 years old!
We would have picked more if there had been more. Most were rotting already which meant more work.
I’d take one of those jobs if my kids could pick too but they won’t let my tweens pick for cash. THAT is the real truth.
And they're TERRIBLE strawberries! Hard, dry and sour.
My first patch is on its second year, and the berries are so sweet and juicy that they rarely get as far as the basket, let alone to the kitchen for jam. I'll start a second patch next year.
That is what I was thinking....what will they do when Americans do show up to work?
“Screw McCain and and ALL Amnesty types...”
Amen...all my family will be voting for Hayworth.
Part of the problem is the fact that illegal immigration depresses wages across a large swath of American employment. Not because illegals take the worst jobs but because they are part of the glut of people looking for jobs. It’s all a matter of supply and demand. Almost all businesses support this because it means employers can get by with paying their workers less, and providing them with less benefits in order to keep them, because people know they are expendable and replaceable.
When jobs are scarce, wages stagnate or fall. When workers are scarce, wages rise, as businesses are forced to compete for a finite labor pool.
What the proponents of illegal immigration don’t tell you is that an illegal immigrant may not be the one to take your job, statistically speaking he or she won’t, but what they will do is drive your wage down. All part of the reason that wages have stagnated for the last 35 years.
The great crime in all of this, is the economic and political forces conspiring against the average citizen, the blue collar people, working 9-5, struggling to make ends meet, to get even a part of the American Dream....
We’ve got politicians just eager for more loyal voters, we’ve got business looking for cheap labor, we’ve got unions looking to boost membership, and no where out there is the politician telling the people the truth, and defending our way of life.
So while business and government have colluded to export Americas wealth, and import its poverty, no one party is standing up for the majority. And that’s what’s so frightening and enraging, how, in a nation of 330 million, how alone we truly are.
The only reason illegals are currently in demand is BECAUSE THEY ARE ILLEGAL! Because they have no legal status, businesses can pay them next to nothing and treat them like dirt and get away with it. Make them citizens or give them legitimacy through a guest worker program and their desirability disappears.
What happens then is the same businesses just go looking for a whole new crop of illegal alien workers, and the process starts all over again with some future liberal politician promising to bring the new group of illegals "out of the shadows" by providing them amnesty. In the meantime, we will have 30 million new, democrat-voting citizens wreaking havoc while the next illegal invasion begins.
Therefore, the only solution is absolute and merciless defense of our borders - you try to cross illegally, for whatever reason, you die. It is also essential that illegals already here NEVER be given any type of legal status whatsoever. To do so would be national suicide.
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