Posted on 11/09/2011 2:18:09 AM PST by markomalley
Apple growers say they could have had one of their best years ever if a shortage of workers hadn't forced them to leave some fruit on trees.
Growers in Washington state, which produces about half of the nation's apples, say the labor shortage was made worse by a late start to their harvest. The growing season got off to a slow start because of a cold, wet spring, and some migrant workers didn't stick around to wait for it.
But farmers say an immigration crackdown by the federal government and states such as Arizona and Alabama scared off many more workers. They have tried to replace them with domestic workers with little success and inmates at a much greater cost. Many growers have resorted to posting "pickers wanted" signs outside their orchards and asking neighbors to send prospective workers their way.
Jeff Pheasant and his sister Darla Grubb are the fourth generation in their family to grow apples near Soap Lake, about 120 miles east of Seattle. They said their harvest was a week behind because the fruit wasn't ripe, then another week behind because they had no workers to pick it.
Pheasant Orchards usually has 65 workers at the peak of harvest. Only 50 pickers arrived this year, and many were inexperienced, Pheasant said.
"You have to have people," Grubb said. "They're the reason we have fruits and vegetables. We couldn't do this without our workers."
(Excerpt) Read more at old.news.yahoo.com ...
You complain about "inexperienced" workers, but all of your previous experience was through illegals. So what do you expect?
Deal with it.
A few busloads of OWS folks could help.
Exactly. But don’t tell them the secret to hiring quality people is to pay them. That’s blasphemy.
Methinks there’s a great new crop of pickers for them to harvest.
They can be found milling around Wall Street and the downtown areas of several major cities. They need something to “occupy” their time.
You aren’t going to find regular Americans (unemployed or otherwise), who are willing to do seasonal fruit and vegetable work. I grew up in the south, and can remember the hassle my dad had....just finding three or four teenage kids to haul hay for one lousy day.
You could offer $12 an hour, with health insurance...for ten workers that you need for a month....and you just won’t find the Americans willing to do the manual labor involved. I do agree that we had such people back in the 1950s and 1960s....but times have changed and society is unwilling fit into such a supply and demand situation. By spring of next year....folks will be asking why crop production is falling behind and why apples were left in the orchards....and some think-tank will admit that labor wasn’t there to make things happen.
Why? Bums don't work. For any amount of money. They want government to provide the assistance they are "entitled" to (note the quotes around "entitled")
Could have helped. Probably too late now, and anyway OWS is too busy with what they regard as real work.
The apple pickers are all in Detroit living on welfare.
Right on!. The same laments were heard in the 1850's when it was proposed to get rid of slavery. Somehow, the U.S. survived when it was finally done.
So the “crops are rotting in the fields” again ... even in an avowed Blue State like Washington where illegal aliens can get driver’s licenses. How rich!
Congress needs to act and pass a law so we can sue Mother Nature. Wait...This is 0bama's fault, perhaps an executive order?
Americans will do any kind of work; they always have, but at a price. If they needed labor they imported it - legally. The profits this family earned by using illegal aliens (undermining our whole system in the process) will simply haved to be pared back; if it not profitable to raise apples anymore then so be it.
“The apple pickers are all in Detroit living on welfare.”
Well put; the job market distortions caused by illegal aliens actually do, in this case, hit minorities (specifically blacks) hardest.
There is machinery able to do this work and if purchasing it will cause the price of an apple to increase then so be it. The market will determine if the price is fair and if not apples will be imported and folks can by those.
Either compete or go out of business.
Here is a great opportunity to help everyone out. Don’t tax the seasonal workers and don’t tax the farmer for hiring them. The farmer will be able to pay a bit more and the jobs might be a bit more attractive with a bit more money.
Back in the early 80s I made $5 an hour under the table working on the farm and that was pretty decent money tax free.
...they (illegals)are all working in union jobs paying triple what pickers make.....lettuce and apples are below them now.
That’s the type of work I did when I was in high school — picked for the local farmers. Not glamorous, but it was a job. I guess the entitled “yout” in America are too good for this type of labor.
Why pick apples when one can sit at home, watch TV and get a welfare check?
Robot technology to pick color coded balls has been with us for 10 years. The problem is farmers and their customers get a free ride from the taxpayers which pick up most of the labor costs in the form of free healthcare, food, housing, welfare, pension, schools, law enforcement, cell phones, cable TV, on and on. If all this socialism was fairly priced into the cost of fruit and vegetables, robots and the high pay/high tax jobs they create would become competitive and our standard of living would increase.
Everyone receiving unemployment benefits should be offered the chance to pick crops. I agree you have to pay a decent wage but if they say no, no more welfare.
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