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."
Complain legitimate Americans are lazy, drug users and bad, to justify hiring low wage illegals.
I suspect, based on your own comments regarding young Americans being lazy trash, that you like so many other unscrupulous employers, hire illegal aliens for higher profit gain, regardless of consequences.
It’s a huge lie.
I was in commercial printing. I started as a delivery driver and fill in bindery worker 1n 1985. We had one Mexican who swept the floors and filled in with hand folding, etc. The entire shop floor at that time was white. All the pressmen were journeymen types, many with technical school certs and the like. High school kids worked summers learning to feed and handle paper, and some came to work full time for the company.
Well, this mexican guy got his wife a job too. He said he was legal and had docs, so no problem, right? 10 or 12 years later, she is a bindery lead, in charge of hand work. $15 an hour in 1995. She would be calling in 5-10 girls, (all mexican, of course), to hand fold certain jobs on a moments notice. She had 2 names. The name all her friends and family used, and the one management used.
Over the years, as I moved up into middle management, I would train people to operate machines. The first mexicans that were promoted to a new job were well spoken bilinguals.
I noticed fewer and fewer whites on the floor.
Eventually, maybe 10 or 12 years, is all it took, I had to learn enough spanish to communicate with an operator, because they had no english. When the company went out of business in 2004, the entire floor was hispanic. Many good trade jobs.
I saw first hand how wages were depressed and good jobs taken by illegals. That’s printing. Then there’s construction and various other trades.
They’re not stupid, or inferior, or anything else. They want something better, and are willing to cheat and game the system to get it.
There is no down side to being illegal.
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...
Spot on.
Second, UC Davis developed machines for picking every row crop and tree crop in California 40 years ago. The limiting factor is cost. But if/when wages go up, cost will no longer be a limiting factor. It'll all be mechanized. All of it.
There are fast food places around here where the person at the drive-thru speaks little to no english.
Americans would take these jobs if the wages were not depressed by the labor glut exacerbated by illegals. It’s called supply and demand. If work needs to be done and there aren’t enough people to do the jobs, employers have no choice but to raise wages sufficiently to attract people to do the work.
Yeah, I know, most of them would wind up in the emergency room if they tried to work one day like I worked when I was twelve years old on days that I wasn’t in school. I used to walk more miles in one summer day than most of them walk in a month now and I KNOW I didn’t have it as tough as those who came a hundred years before me, not even close.
I understand now what Kirk Douglas meant when he said that he was so proud of what Michael had accomplished even though he did not have the “great advantage” of being brought up dirt poor as Kirk was.
Your post was eye opening!
I rode a machine probably two days in my time.
I walked all but two days of detasseling in all my years. However, I liked the machine.
Today (March 3 2010) at approximately 7:30 am, a mere 45 minutes after the first shift bell rang, warehouse workers evacuated the SC2 (Supply Chains Company) warehouse after hearing a rumor or Immigration Control planning to make a visit. About two thirds of the warehouse workers up and clocked out after hearing this rumor in hopes of dodging the whole scenario all together. This only left a couple hundred people left working in the whole facility. SC2 is a company that is contracted by the "Big Yellow (Caterpillar)" as a parts packaging facility.
http://www.topix.com/forum/city/peoria-il/TG3JIS1ED7BUF39G2
Unemployment check ping!
I don’t have too many born and bred ‘Americans’ knocking on my door looking for work. Exactly what jobs do you see illegals doing that you think there is a long line for? I’m sorry, but unskilled, low education service jobs like lawncare, farm workers, etc... are never going to be high paying jobs. People will simply not get their lawn cut by someone else when it becomes too expensive. Sorry, but if you want a good job with good pay, you need to contribute something above ordinary.
I don’t have too many born and bred ‘Americans’ knocking on my door looking for work. Exactly what jobs do you see illegals doing that you think there is a long line for? I’m sorry, but unskilled, low education service jobs like lawncare, farm workers, etc... are never going to be high paying jobs. People will simply not get their lawn cut by someone else when it becomes too expensive. Sorry, but if you want a good job with good pay, you need to contribute something above ordinary.
I don’t have too many born and bred ‘Americans’ knocking on my door looking for work. Exactly what jobs do you see illegals doing that you think there is a long line for? I’m sorry, but unskilled, low education service jobs like lawncare, farm workers, etc... are never going to be high paying jobs. People will simply not get their lawn cut by someone else when it becomes too expensive. Sorry, but if you want a good job with good pay, you need to contribute something above ordinary.
Ya, it says there are a hell of a lot of stupid, or naive easily led, gullible Americans, just like you.
Careful there, dragnet2, you sound alot like a liberal who just resorts to name calling and foul language when you don’t have anything intelligent to say.
A guest worker program would make it alot easier to separate the people here who are working and the people just mooching off the system and dealing.
Uh, lets see....Are you suggesting that millions of illegal aliens in the LA area are all simply mowing lawns with several million more picking berries along the Long Beach Freeway?
wow....
Once again, for slow people like yourself....
They drive trucks, work in manufacturing, operate machines, run the restaurant food industry, have taken over construction industry, operate forklifts, run warehouses....drive cabs, landscaping firms, some run photography studios, mechanics, hotel industry etc etc, etc....
Geezzz...
When I tell people there are millions of illegals in LA, yet not a berry field in sight.....Well, that should be a clue.....lol
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.