Posted on 03/31/2015 12:02:12 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
This immigration story takes place far from the southern border and actually hits rather close to home for me, since it’s set in upstate New York. What’s that you say? We don’t have an illegal immigrant problem in the northeast? Think again. Apparently the use of illegal farm labor is still all the rage up here, but it just doesn’t get the same sort of press coverage. Particularly hard hit by a lack of “comprehensive immigration reform” are the dairy farmers.
When Mike McMahon’s Latino employees need to go to the bank, the pharmacy or the grocery store, he makes sure someone drives them to town, waits while they run errands, and then brings them safely back to his dairy farm.
Even then, there is no guarantee law enforcement in their small, rural community won’t spot the workers, ask for their IDs, and put them on a path toward deportation if they cannot prove they are here legally. It is a risk that dairy farmers in this agricultural region have faced for years, but it is hitting them harder as immigration reform languishes in Washington and the nation’s demand for milk-heavy products like Greek yogurt soars.
“It’s just crazy,” said McMahon, who has several hundred cows at his farm more than 200 miles north of New York City.
“I’m a lifelong Republican,” he said, shaking his head. “But I’m telling you, there are days when I think about switching.”
Reporters interviewed a number of farmers who complained that they couldn’t get the “locals” to sign on to do the dirty, manual jobs which are required on a dairy farm. Also, there are regulations which allow bringing in legal immigrants with temporary guest worker visas, but those are only useful for agricultural work during harvest or planting season. Dairy farms run year round, so those types of guest workers are not viable. Still, there’s a bit of denial of reality when they come right out and admit that they are breaking the law.
Without new immigration laws, he and other farmers say, the nation will lose dairy producers, because farmers will switch to growing crops whose workers are eligible for temporary guest-worker visas.
“The U.S. dairy industry absolutely cannot survive without this,” said Dale, a dairy farmer who has moved toward robotic milking to avoid the labor problem. Like many dairy farmers, he did not want his full name or his farm’s name used because he was concerned that immigration officials would target his business.
There aren’t many cases where common ground is found on the immigration reform question, but this actually might be one of them. If we already have agricultural workers who have qualified for and are issued temporary visas for agricultural work, switching that to a year long visa contingent on the sponsorship of a farm owner who is employing them twelve months per year might be doable on a limited scale.
But I’m still stuck on the idea that we can’t find workers to do these jobs. As one of the farmers interviewed in the article states, he’s been paying the dairy workers in his employ an average of $2K per month plus housing on the farm with all utilities paid for. (Also meals in some cases.) Particularly in a tough economy, we can’t find citizens to take that deal? I worked on family farms in the summer growing up doing exactly that sort of work from time to time. It’s hard, no doubt about it. But it’s an honest job, and a lot better than starving. Perhaps the farmers need to raise their milk prices slightly and bump up the wages a bit? I don’t know, but it really seems like this could all be accomplished without being “forced” to hire illegal aliens.
“Americans love cheap prices, that’s why they go to Walmarts, Coscos and Sam’s Club, as well as use Amazon.
But they also want the workers to be well taken care of , so they support rises in minimum wage and lots of other employer mandates.
Illegals are the only way we can ‘drink our milk and have it too’, with cake, to support expensive employer mandates but still have cheap prices.”
THis is why people vote democrat. Your assertion is wholly illogical. You want people to live well but you do not want to pay for their goods and services? That cannot be. Illegal labor is not the only way. All of these assertions have huge hidden costs that jump up to bite later.
ABolish minimum wage, do away with subsidies, allow truly free markets and dairymen will pay what labor is worth and milk prices will reflect its true cost and people will make purchase decisions accordingly.
There is nothing in the constitution guaranteeing cheap labor and milk nor is it in any sense a right.
I emphatically disagree with you.
Manual Labor builds strength and conviction of character required to have a civil, polite society.
85% of the kids going to college have NO BUSINESS being there... every Doctor, Lawyer, Politician, Engineer, Computer Programmer, and what have you should spend their formative years digging ditches and breaking big rocks into little rocks with a sledgehammer.
Hell, most of the Politicians can just throw on some orange jumpsuits and leg shackles and get started RIGHT NOW.
They got the quality of talent one would expect.
“It wasn’t magic it was the welfare state. Why bust your ass on a farm when you can collect the same check sitting on your couch?”
Exactly! What incentive is there? NONE! And then, why would a dairy farmer NOT hire illegals and pay so little to them when he has no worries other than loosing ‘time down’ while having to search for replacement illegals. It’s the same across the board in all service industries and construction too. I ABHOR people who hire illegals, no matter what excuse they use! They are contributing to the destruction of the nation as it rapidly moves towards socialism. MILLIONS of citizens out of work and some employers claim they can’t find anyone but a border jumper to do the work? Hardly! They just want to pay low wages! While I’m on my rant, I piss on the ‘do gooders’ who think they are doing good by helping illegals into our nation, moving them deeper into the country, and then lining them up with work and benefits while once again, MILLIONS of our citizens are out of work, many doing nothing but sitting on the couch all day! Spit...
SUburban and rural markets have plenty of young people interested in farming. Farmers simply need to 1) pay better, 2) make the jobs a little more employee friendly, and 3) learn how to do effective employment outreach.
The trouble comes when so many farmers are able to get away with it that other farmers can’t compete without doing the same. Crack down on illegals and their employers wherever they are!
Most of the country doesn’t have local drilling crews to join. But pay whatever the market requires and get creative in attracting good employees.
2K per month is a lot more than most of us end up with after paying room, board, commuting expense and taxes.
LOL. The sad part though is that it leaves them with too much free time which offers them with more opportunities for possible mischief.
Illegal alien cows?? Are US cows getting more expensive? /s
SUburban and rural markets have plenty of young people interested in farming. Farmers simply need to 1) pay better, 2) make the jobs a little more employee friendly, and 3) learn how to do effective employment outreach.
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Not sure about your premise. I live in dairy country. In the high school, *farmer* is an insult. One farm family I know used to tease the oldest daughter that she would marry a farmer. She would cry.
The farmer’s kids grow up seeing how little their parents get to keep. I hear all the time from neighbors that the kids, now adults, do not want to inherit the family business. They don’t want to have to sell it just to pay the estate taxes, either.
I hire a couple of kids from a huge family to do yard work. They have turned their labor into a business. They just bought a lawn tractor....the older one is 14. I was so thrilled to discover them, because for years there were no teens around who would do this sort of work and if I found someone, they were useless. These boys work hard and earn the $10 hour they are paid. And that is the absolute minimum pay for casual labor out here. House cleaners _start_ at $15/hr while building a client base and go to $30 as quickly as possible.
In the families I know that milk, the wives clean udders, hook up machines, clean machines, clean tanks until the day comes when they simply cannot do it any longer. It is hard physical labor for little profit. Relief milkers are hard to find. Many simply sell the herd. I know people who have even quit row crops, mainly due to the cost of diesel. Instead, they raise feeder calves, which is more profitable. It’s a rare farm family that doesn’t have someone working off the farm.
Yes, kids use to work on farms. Now, kids don’t work. They go to school, play sports, music, and are addicted to their phones and computers. We have helicopter parents who won’t let poor Johnny work and go to school.
I have a girl-friend who has coddled her 18 year old son. He doesn’t drive, she is afraid he will have an accident and hurt himself. She drives him to and from college. She still does his laundry. I asked if he will be working this summer, she said no he has one class for the summer and needs to concentrate on his class. He is studying to be a video game inventor. And what does her son do in his free time, plays video games, xbox, etc non-stop.
In the winter, fall, you can’t find any kids to rake leaves, shovel the side-walk any more.
I grew up on a dairy farm. All our friends always wanted to come over to play at the farm, then it was a popular place for high school students to work at. But this was a middle class to upper middle class area.
Young college grads go to live and volunteer on organic farms now both here in the US and abroad: http://www.wwoof.net/
Dairy farms used to be quite pleasant places. Too many have become sloppy, dirty, and brutish cow factories now. I’m not opposed to farmers having an incentive to make them nice places again—for both their workers and their cows.
BTW—I’m a reformed liberal too.
That may be, but productivity is the measure of output divided by input. Higher productivity is achieved mostly through mechanical inputs. For example, people for the most part no longer harvest wheat with a sickle, they use combines.
The reason that we enjoy a high standard of living is the increased productivity enabled by mechanization. It's a good thing.
Here’s an extreme example of the pull to the farm.
(And yeah, $17M helps.)
He’s built his business on sand.
Great comments. One would think that with all the clamoring about eating organically grown products, saving the earth, and ensuring that they do whatever they can to make the farm animals feel loved, more people would just jump at a chance to put something other than their mouth to work and head for the farm. Not exactly how one would go about making a task, such as muckin’ out stalls, more alluring though.
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