So his solution was to have the gubmint bring in more workers. His next step would have to be make the gubmint prevent those workers from going to construction jobs which pay better and aren’t as back breaking for said workers. Does that about cover it?
boo hoo! I can’t pay slave wages so I’ll stop growing ‘maters. Boo hoo!
Wonder how hard he has tried. Nearly $17 an hour is a pretty high wage. When I was growing up in the sixties, we kids hired ourselves out to do harvest work. The whole school district would shut down for two to three weeks to allow everyone to work. We would choose a picking partner, dress in warm clothes (it was usually early October) and go to the designated pickup place (often the schoolyard) to wait for some farmer to pick us, load us in the back of his pickup and drive us to the fields. We worked from dawn to dusk, making at first, $.07 per hundredweight of potatoes picked and bagged. The first year I was seven years old and my partner and I each used baskets designed to hold fifty pounds of potatoes, to be dumped into gunny sacks which held two baskets’ worth of potatoes. We earned, together, $1.63 for that first day’s labor—partly because our arms were too short to properly hold the gunny sack and partly because we were too little to lift 50 pounds at a time. Later I worked on combines where pay was more like $1.50 an hour. If we were lucky we worked everyday for the whole harvest break and then went back to school with new clothes and Christmas shopping money.
There were plenty of migrant workers doing the same thing, making a lot more money, but it didn’t seem there was much of a shortage of Gringos working also. It’s a different world, though. My kids turn their noses up at fast food jobs or retail jobs as “beneath” them.
The fields beside my parents NC place produce millions of tomatoes each year. A few years ago the grower sold out to a group of Mexican pickers who cleaned it up and made it more productive than it’s ever been.
why would a legal worker be afraid to cross state lines ?
perhaps this farmer doesn’t want to pay a decent wage...
Tomatoes can grow inside too!
http://breederville.com/auction/blogspermalink.php?permalink=1&blog=1
Little Space? Grow Vegetables inside
I emailed the newspaper with the following: RE: Farmer Keith Eckel to end tomato planting due to decrease in illegal migrant workers. Did Michael Rubinkam ask Eckel whether he had actually tried to advertise locally/nationally for laborers for this or last season? I can guarantee you that my 17 year old son, who now works as a dishwasher for minimum wage, would gladly pick tomatoes for $16 per hour. I also would consider that job over the high-stress job I now have, which does not pay as much. Me, Johnstown, PA
Didn’t McLame say that gringos wouldn’t pick lettuce for $50 an hour?
Bet we’ll pick tomatoes for it!
He complains about the government, but I don’t see him refusing those farm subsidies.
Keith and Fred Eckel have collected more farm subsidy money than than anyone else in Clarks Summit, Pa from 1995 to 2005. Top two slots, as a matter of fact.
$271,853.49 plus $142,702.39.
I picked tomatoes after the ex dropped me and kids off in TN and took off (that's one reason for being the ex) and I needed money to get back home. My kids helped pick, and they were 7 and 8 1/2 years old. We picked from 6 a.m. until dark. The crews were all US citizens, mostly teenagers and a few older gentlemen, none hispanic.
As kids from about age 12, my brothers and I picked strawberries, peaches, apples, watermelons, cataloupes, detassled corn, and bucked bales during summer break-whatever work we could get. I milked 75 cows for an elderly farmer who couldn't do it anymore my last 2 years in high school-before and after school. That included cleaning tanks, rounding up the cows, feeding the cows, etc. One brother put himself through college cleaning tanks in a cheese factory. My job was cushy compared to his.
And, I'm female.
If folks in this country get hungry enough, they will work. Until then...well, I don't know what to think about our spoiledness anymore.
Ever grow tomatoes? It’s about the most labor intensive crop on the face of the earth. A neighbor of mine grows thirty acres. He has to employ around fifteen people to manage the crop over about three months. That’s just for thirty acres! Too much water, too little water, too much sun, too little sun, cracking, blistering, bugs, fungus, and picking from each plant when the fruits are just right is endless. He drives a truck load of around 2000lbs to markets in Chicago from July thru September almost every day. Good summer job for college kids. $8.00 per hour.
No problem - who wants tomatoes that taste like wet cardboard.
Get rid of welfare and I’ll bet he’ll get all the workers he needs.
tell the Welfare Rats they either pick... or lose their free ride.Next rich capitalist needs to invent the tomato picker. NOW.
His workers are as close as Philadelphia, PA and Newark, NJ.
Knock off all the entitlement programs that these potential workers suck at the tit of (going back to LBJ) and voila there’s your home grown work force.
LOL... He runs a forth generation, multi million dollar business and he cant' find 175 workers? He deserves to go out of business.
He's all too used to getting rich on the backs of the illegals and shifting all their costs and benefits onto the backs of the taxpayers.
This is who the Republican leadership is pandering to. A few campaign dollars from guys like this and they're ready to toss conservatives under the bus.
Karl Rove, you fool! It's the height of Republican stupidity when "comprehensive" amnesty would be bring in 20 million new Democrat voters in these days of razor thin election margins.