[raybbr]

It has become the norm to blame the govt. for every failure.

[Revelation 911]

um - lemme guess what hes gonna grow now....biofuel?

[sheana]

We have 20-40 mil illegals, along with the legal immigrants, guest worker programs, etc. and we can’t get some measley tomatos harvested? He is right, the system is broken but not the way he thinks it is broken.

[kingu]

Sooo... Let me see if I get this right - a possible employer complains that because the ‘’immigration system’’ is broken, he can't get his crop harvested. I wonder if he'd care to share the advertisements he put out, or the employment agencies he contacted? No? So..what we have here is someone who didn't really try, doesn't really care, just wants to come up with a good excuse for changing products and make a political statement.

[Iron Munro]

"There are a number of workers hesitant to travel, legal or illegal, because of the scrutiny they are now under"

More dishonest conflating of legal and illegal in order to play the victim card.

If the government stopped paying people not to work there would be plenty of help available.

[afnamvet]

Let Eckel and other hirers of illegals go belly up. Too bad ICE didn’t raid him during an earlier harvest.

[M203M4]

Part of HIS job is to set a salary that will attract sufficient labor. Looks like a poor immigration strategy had been subsidizing the poor business practices of a (soon to be) poor businessman. Adapt or die.

[bill1952]

Hmm. Lets see now.

How did we ever grow & harvest food and grain without 20 million illegal immigrants, again?

Since when did Pa. ever have a large immigrant population anyway, other than the last decade?

[Dr.Zoidberg]

If your profit margin relies on a criminal conspiracy to suppress wages, then you deserve to be out of business.

Employ illegals and lose your business should be the law of the land.

[Popman]

Sounds like a passage from Atlas Shrugged.

[stayathomemom]

Isn’t that what summer vacation is for?

[ml/nj]

Guess lawn mowing pays better.

ML/NJ

[LoneRangerMassachusetts]

"A lot of people think with immigration that we're talking about immigrants taking jobs from others. Let me tell you, there is no local labor that is going to go out and harvest those tomatoes in 90-degree temperatures except our immigrant labor," Eckel said. "They come here to do a job that no one else will do in this country."

I believe Australia solved its grape picking problem by having engineers design machines to do the work. Imagine that. An Aussie gets to ride around on a mechanical harvester that does all the hard work. I'll bet they have air conditioning. I think they are using mechanical harvesters to pick grapes in California.

If Eckel wasn't such a cheap bsatrad resorting to slave wage immigrants, he could help the American economy improve productivity through innovation and technology. There is no shortage of illegal immigrants. The ones that are here want more money than he is willing to pay out.

[rednesss]

[I see my hands]

To: Big Tom

IOW you can only find success while breaking the rules. Thanks for generations of productivity but now you have to make way for more efficient, legal operations.

[LiberConservative]

Folks like Mr. Eckel helped create this problem. Now he has the audacity to blame the government when it bites him in the ass. He’s obviously a “compassionate” conservative.

[PeterFinn]

Why doesn’t he use the same harvesting machines we use in California?

[dennisw]

All he knows is he wants his illegal alien cheap labor and the rest can go to hell

We are inundated with illegal aliens but too many have figured out how to stay here without picking his tomatoes. If there was enforcement in other industries there would be plenty of illegals to pick crops

If McCain and Congress legalized 20 million illegal aliens what makes this guy think he will get his farm laborers?

[Fido969]

Why should they work when they can just stay home and collect welfare and food stamps?

[AreaMan]

...because he can't find enough workers to harvest it.

How sympathetic would this farmer sound if he said, "I can't find enough people to exploit and pay sh*t wages to."

The real phrase should be "...enough CHEAP workers".

This idiotic objection came up in California when the Bracero Program ended. The Braceros were replaced by harvesting machines. I rode the FMC tomato harvester and watched it do what the farmers said couldn't be done.

We'll never know if technology can do this work because idiots feel it is easier to exploit a whole class of people.

Ok so the price of tomatoes will skyrocket to $7/lb. Maybe that is the real price of tomatoes, not the illegal labor subsidized price.

[Kakaze]

Legalize the 20 million ( min wage, ss tax, state withholding, medical ) and this guy will scream he still needs illegals to work for the few scheckels he tosses them!