[goldstategop]

How about hiring Americans to do the harvest at fair wages? Oh yeah, that's a more radical concept than hiring illegal cheap labor. Without the latter, we can't keep bread and cereal prices low. As if everything's about money.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus

[ran20]

I read that on a 1 dollar head of lettuce, 3 cents is the cost of picking. I estimated with the numbers we could pay about 40 dollars an hour to lettuce pickers if we were willing to pay 15 cents more a head of lettuce.

[ozzymandus]

You’re confusing picking lettuce with driving a combine. This article is total BS. Nobody is going to put a $250,000 combine in the hands of anybody who doesn’t know how to run it.

[nwrep]

How about hiring Americans to do the harvest at fair wages?

"Fair wages" is unfair and out of proportion to the value they bring. In addition to the (outrageously high) minimum wages that most states have enacted, farmers are forced to pay American farm-workers crap like unemployment insurance, disability insurance, FICA/SS, and other taxes and benefits as local/state jurisdictions impose. That brings the cost of hiring an American worker to over $15/hour for farmers. Why should a farmer pay $15 to do work that a chimpanzee can do, which is what most of back-breaking farm work is?

I sure don't want to force our farmers to pay the outrageous "fair wages" that our laws have mandated.

[Tequila25]

Wait, are we pro-business or pro-labor? What is it this week?