Posted on 09/23/2004 6:14:50 PM PDT by pickemuphere
SACRAMENTO, Calif. - California became the first state Thursday to ban weeding by hand on most farms, saying the work is too backbreaking for laborers.
Under a rule approved by the California Occupational Safety and Health Division, farmworkers, in most cases, will not have to stoop to pull weeds, but will instead be given long-handled tools that will allow them to work without bending over. The rule takes effect within two weeks.
The regulation aims to prevent the “real and substantial risk of back injury” caused by stooping to weed or thin plants by hand, Cal-OSHA said. The workplace-safety agency had no estimate of how many California field hands hurt their backs.
(Excerpt) Read more at msnbc.msn.com ...
I am curious, what kind of tool can do the job of weeding by hand effectively?
LOL, I thought his was work Americans didn't want to do, so illegals picked up the slack. Now they don't want to do it either? LMAO
Pulling weeds by hand for the last six or seven thousand years was good enough. Now we need to protect day laborers. Honestly, Cal OSHA or whoever came up with this one couldn't be more absurd.
Pulling weeds is the only way to eradicate them. Cutting them with a long handled device will simly allow them to grow back. Using a hoe is much much slower.
Maybe Im dumb, but why not spray the weeds?
Weed spray kills Mexicans. Who's gonna pick the strawberries?
Oh my word...we in NE would be screwed with this law...we walk beans (soy) and kids detassle corn have for decades that's how they make money!
I hope the weed puller dosen't hurt the tender weeds. The enviroment might suffer if it knew the weeds were dying.
The same thing that picks the wheat and corn.
MACHINES.
Few herbicides are that plant specific - if you spray the weeds, you'll often end up killing the plant you're trying to grow.
Thanks, that is a very good reason. :)
All farm labor should be done by inmates. No need for illegal aliens to do it.
I too grown up on a farm... but it was an orchard.... I can't imagine picking all those weeds.... that is just insane. It is unfortunate CAL OSHA has to stick their corrupted nose into the business of ranchers... I suspect it has less to do with bad backs and more to do with total control of the state.... money, all about money.
Hey cant we just eat weeds? I think it would save a lot of this time on this controversy(contrevesy if you are Richard Quest).
The question still remains how to get the weeds from the ground to the dinner table?
Oh, but then we will need a lot of mexicans to pull the weeds so we can eat them.
"Who's gonna pick the strawberries?"
Don't give Cal OSHA ideas, strawberries will have to picked with a long handled tool next.
OSHA could care less that they are all going to be squashed from now on.
From my experience from pulling weeds on the farm, I can tell you that it would be very hard for any device to work as well as hands. You can tell when the weed is about to break when you have tactile contact, not with a metal device. Breaking the weed off is as bad as cutting it. It'll just sprout and grow back.
I've never seen a strawberry picking machine before.
The same thing that picks the wheat and corn.
MACHINES.
Great the seed companies can develop strawberries as tough as corn or wheat, no trouble, but how are you gonna get people to eat them?
So9
SO QUIT!
Confounded, the liberals call a summit and hold a round table discussion; "The chirpractic Benefits of Atrazine" Dr. Richard Bob emerged beaming from the inclusive event to giddily announce that no relevent conclusions had been drawn.
(I know the feeling man, I worked a farm when I was kid too. Picking up rocks was my bane)
Well, I've heard of smoking the weeds but never eating the weeds. That is not a job for the weak minded.
One more thing...
Lots of countries grow stuff, and do not "enjoy" the illegal population to harvest FOR them. Soooooooo, they have machines, at the ready.. Now. Keep pushing, and this B.S. deal with NEEDING to match workers with work, will plummet.
Ever heard of grapes dried on the vine, and harvested by machine?? Hmmmmmm???
It will save Millions upon Millions of labor dollars, done cheaper, and we don't have to support the babies from the machines.
Me and my family, at the U-pick
Ducks and snails
A hoe can come very, very close to mimicking the work of the hands -- especially when used by a pro. I agree that seedlings are best weeded by hand (this was my chore) but everything else gets the hoe or cultivator.
I wonder what would have happened if we would have had some government agency on hand at Plymouth to tell the new settlers that they could not do any backbreaking labor?
Our country could never have been settled by people with this mindset. It kind of makes me wonder what happened to the pioneering spirit of those who moved out west. One would think they would have retained the hardworking free spirit of the original settlers. Guess not.
I assume Arnold signed this into law. I hire a Mexican to pull weeds in my yard by hand. Am I in trouble? If so I guess my wife will have to do it.
Necessity is the mother of invention. If you can figure out how to put music on a CD you can damn well figure out how to pick strawberries with a machine.
And don't run the 'cheap lettuce' argument here.....after you add in the schooling, medicating, and incarcerating of the illegals that head of lettuce costs a fortune.
Which raises the question; why haven't employers provided these tools already? The initial investment? (which could be substantial)
It could be worse, try bending over while standing in water all day.
Machines pick and pack our tomatos, that is why we have to grow our own or find a boutique grower of heirloom varieties somewhere to get an edible tomato.
Mechanization works fine with crops that are already sturdy enough to survive, but no one has yet figured out how to pick delicates mechanically and they have been selling machines to supposedly do it for 50 years.
So9
A hoe. In high school I could weed a 6 foot by ten mile area in a day (all for minimum wage!). If you know how to use them, a good hoe can pull a weed out by the roots and drop it wherever you want. The trick is to hook the weed around the base of the rod by giving the hoe a half twist and then using the inverted hoe as a lever. It gets easy after your millionth weed!
Wimpy strawberries doesn't justify letting in illegals to do the job. Cut out welfare and let the uneducated pick strawberries. The higher cost of employing Americans will motivate somebody to invent a strawberry picker.
It is a regulation handed down by California OHSA, not a law.
Sure sounds like you will be in trouble in the future if you live in California and hire someone to pull weeds.
Who cares strawberrys suck. I hate the damn things. Not joking, they taste about as good as okra.
According to the LA Times article on the same topic today (page B1), CA banned the short-handled (12") hoe in 1975, since using it to pull weeds was hard work and since anyone resting would be immediately visible.
So, the farmers/subcontractors hired workers to pull weeds by hand. Still, farmers prefer other methods, since hand-weeding is slow and labor-intensive (read: expensive).
I dunno... strawberries are pretty good if they're cold and fresh.
Once, me and my honey bought some and forgot them in my truck. It got hot that day. When we finally got in the truck, couldn't figure out what the stink was.
Finally found the strawberries. Smelled like dirty, old stinking feet. Toe cheese. Bad enough to make you puke.
I always thought that a good ho can make much more than minimum wage.
well im not a total city slicker but no i havent worked on a farm.
if the tool works, then maybe its cheaper than opening yourself up to potential lawsuits as well. i work in front of a computer these days, and i know even having your monitor in the wrong place can cause neck and back problems. it makes sense to use or better technology and knowledge to improve our jobs and health.
[kids detassle corn]
Been there,did that :)
It's good, honest, hard work.
Strawberries ten years ago tasted much better, but spoiled quicker and were more susceptible to diseases than the strawberries commonly available today.
Since the current strawberries already taste really bland, they might as well generate an "improved" type as resistant to bruises as apples and oranges. (I hope not!)
I wonder, if Cal-OSHA can enforce their labor regulations on farms, why can't the INS/CIS/etc. or Border Patrol enforce immigration law as well?
My father-in-law worked every summer walking the corn in NE when he was a kid. My husband decided washing dishes at Bishops was more his likeing, LOL. Still trying to get one of my kids to fly out there for the summer and "walk the corn". We in Connecticut don't have such options. I could never understand how a child could get lost in a corn field till I visited Nebraska.
This is no different than OSHA requiring hard hats on some construction sites. I don't see anything wrong with it and in my opinion, unless the farmer is hiring illegals, it would SAVE them money in workers compensation claims for injured backs.
At least they didn't demand the farmers eschew the operation altogether, and order them to only use "weed-eating" geese.
LOL
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