'They quit after a few hours': Farmers admit they can't find American workers

[phoenix2020]

I didn't say what my race is, never have.

What gives you any indication that I am white?

Do you label all races as only acting a certain way?

Why do you believe that white people cannot pick strawberries? Is this based upon your personal experience? Why were you never able to develop the skill to pick strawberries all day long?

 

[reflechissez]

Can you quote where they said that?

Or admit you are making stuff up?

Which one ya got?

She frequently projects made-up nonsense onto others. I don't know why she thinks that's a good look.

 

[reflechissez]

So, it’s only white MAGA who can’t pick strawberries? That seems like a weirdly specific handicap.

 

[Linuxcooldude]

Mechanical automation makes for cheaper tomatoes.

How the Mechanical Tomato Harvester Prompted the Food Movement

-

www.plantsciences.ucdavis.edu

 

[Chomsky]

“I’ve employed Americans, and they quit after a few days,” lamented Wisconsin Tracy Vinz, “They quit after a few hours.”

Georgia produce farmer Mitch Lawson claimed he "lost nearly two dozen American employees before he qualified for $200,000," with Lawson stating, "I’ve had a couple who didn’t even last a whole day."

I suspect what the farmer really means is:

"Americans won't work for the wages and benefits I'm willing to provide them"

And why are we giving this guy $200K?

 

[Linuxcooldude]

There are plenty of people working physically demanding jobs so that can't be the reason.

Ever seen a tree trimmer out there working?

You need a better excuse to show me that we are all going to starve because nobody will pick our food.

Hell, I will go pick some fruit if they pay me 30 bucks an hour.

Yep, roofers, construction, concrete, etc.

 

[Chomsky]

What they are saying is that they can no longer find someone to work the farms for 2 dollars an hour.

Why do you support slave wages?

Not just low wages, but probably no bennies either.

And does he hire them legally? Pay minimum wage? Take-out taxes? Pay FICA? Unemployment insurance?

By saying "Americans won't do this work", he's essentially saying "I provide deplorable working conditions taking advantage of hapless migrants having no other recourse".

 

[Chomsky]

Now I know you're in the wrong thread. Just wake up from a dream?


I see you haven't yet wakened up.

Your dream is concocting some bizarre fantasy. No one is being paid $2 an hour, therefore you need to wake up and smell the strawberries.

Farmers are going bankrupt. Again, you are obviously a liberal commie pinko city-slicker who cares not about rural Americans.

If farmers' business model depends upon illegal or below minimum-wage workers, do you really want to support this model?

 

[Bucky]

you ever spent 10+ hours in a field in 90* heat doing hard labor?

Those jobs will be automated from AI.

 

[Chomsky]

LOL,
How many of those landscapers and dishwashers are white kids?

Depends upon the length of one's reference.

When I was in high-school, my American Euro-Caucasian buddies were indeed doing this specific work. There were several. In fact, one of my buddys' pops owned a landscaping company and my buddy worked with his pops for several years after high school, until he decided to get a CDL and do eighteen-wheeling.

This was before Mexican migration grew to the high levels we've seen in recent decades. So yes, some Americans did indeed do this type of work before the prevalence of cheap - and sometimes illegal - Mexican labour.

ever tried to do any real farm labor?

I admit I can't speak to the above, as my life experiences have been urban, save for some childhood farm summers which I won't count - because my help provided while there was only occasional & short.

 

[lynnwinslow]

I am willing to pay an extra few cents to ensure farm workers are paid a decent wage, have rights, and are in a safe work environment.

It's sad so many of you aren't.

You are some very cold people.

Said the person who troll posted about not caring about the health of a migrant child.

 

[Girlpower]

Said the person who troll posted about not caring about the health of a migrant child.

I never said that.

Who will pick my strawberries if the migrant children get sick?

 

[lynnwinslow]

I never said that.

Who will pick my strawberries if the migrant children get sick?

The empathy was just oozing out of your comment in the thread about the 6 year old with cancer who has been detained by ICE. (That's sarcasm.)

They don't belong here.

Get them the **** out.

It's not our fault the mother brought a sick kid here.

 

[Chomsky]

Yes, Americans need an underclass to do the jobs they are too good to do.

That's the other side of illegal immigration.

We rightfully focus on the decrease in Americans' wages, but sometimes forget the abuse in taking advantage of the less fortunate.

If those farmers want to hire migrants, they need to do it legally and within the regulations and policies accorded Americans.

 

[Girlpower]

The empathy was just oozing out of your comment in the thread about the 6 year old with cancer who has been detained by ICE. (That's sarcasm.)

Do you want to pay for every sick child in the world?

You are free to do so.

 

[lynnwinslow]

Do you want to pay for every sick child in the world?

You are free to do so.

LOL, you can't help yourself, can you?

 

[NolanVoyd]

What they are saying is that they can no longer find someone to work the farms for 2 dollars an hour.

Why do you support slave wages?

We are at full employment.

You know that right?

 

[Chomsky]

Because US Citizens won't do the work. We went through this in the Obama years. Southern/Bible Belt states cracked down illegal hiring, and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of crops rotted in fields because citizens wouldn't do the work. States even worked with farms to provide better financial incentives, and it barely moved the needle.

Despite common believe to the contrary, jobs like this aren't low knowledge/low skill. Many crops require specific methods for efficient harvest. It's not "just go pick the crops" just like working fast food isn't just "assemble the burger." It's backbreaking work that does require particlar knowledge/skills/work ethic. There are people willing to do this work for a certain wage, and we're kicking them out so they don't take jobs that...citizens won't do.

This is part of how food prices increase.

I suspect if farm wages and benefits were allowed to be free-market determined for farms, rather than importing cheap labour, eventually the market would settle itself. Obviously, it would be at higher food prices.

The problem is we let this get so far out-of-hand, that any sudden changes will shock the system. Change needs to be implemented gradually.

Of course the bigger question is, "Are we willing to essentially have an underclass of imported workers so we could enjoy lower food prices?". That's an ethical or ideological question, more than economic question, I believe.

 

[Chomsky]

Not so much as they are paid at least the min wage and if being abused can report the abuse without fear of being deported.

Now Canadians generally do not want to do that work for the pay being offered. But it is a fully legal process and employers will get in trouble if they abuse workers

To bring-in migrants legally, if the pay and benefits are in concert with regular employment law, might be a fair compromise.

But even with that, I have my concerns as we're interfering with free-market forces. In other words, pay enough and Americans will work those jobs they supposedly won't work.

I can't speak to farm work, but in my own lifetime this was definitely true for those restaurant and landscaping jobs that are currently migrant dominate. This wasn't the case in the earlier parts of my life; actually ,for the first half of my life.

 

[Girlpower]

We are at full employment.

You know that right?

Good job by Trump then, right?

 

[Lycanthrope]

Last fall, MAGA Republicans were telling us that we were paying too much for groceries. Now they're telling us that we don't pay enough for groceries.

To be fair, until Taco explained it to them MAGAs weren't sure what a "groceries" really was.

"It’s such an old-fashioned term but a beautiful term: groceries. It sort of says a bag with different things in it." - Taco of the Many Words

 

[Chomsky]

Mechanical automation makes for cheaper tomatoes.

How the Mechanical Tomato Harvester Prompted the Food Movement

-

www.plantsciences.ucdavis.edu

Lots of twists and turns in that story!

Thank you.

 

[trixare4kids]

If farmers can prove they can't find American workers or don't have enough qualified to farm their fields, their next course of action is to ask for legal seasonal workers through the H-2A temporary agricultural worker program.

Don't want to do that then, pick your own crops.
People like the O/P should stop whining, politicizing this, and blaming a president who is simply doing his job by enforcing the law. If farmers want to do the same, whine, this applies to them too.

The world will not stop because of the farmers' failure to hire legal seasonal workers. They are not victims like the "libs" want to make them out to be.

 

[NolanVoyd]

Good job by Trump then, right?

No, we have been at full employment for years.

 

[Chomsky]

If farmers can prove they can't find American workers or don't have enough qualified to farm their fields, their next course of action is to ask for legal seasonal workers through the H-2A temporary agricultural worker program.

Don't want to do that then, pick your own crops.
People like the O/P should stop whining, politicizing this, and blaming a president who is simply doing his job by enforcing the law. If farmers want to do the same, whine, this applies to them too.

The world will not stop because of the farmers' failure to hire legal seasonal workers. They are not victims like the "libs" want to make them out to be.

The bolded might otherwise seem like a good solution, but it usurps free-market forces.

If you bring in the very cheapest minimum wage (Or less?) workers, the wages never rise high enough to attract the American workers the farmers claim they can't find. Then, not having American workers to do the job becomes a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Now if we indeed "run out" of workers themselves, there may be no recourse. I suspect the seasonal nature of farm employment demand could come to dictate this.