Posted on 06/18/2011 7:18:07 PM PDT by Cardhu
Contractor Don Pedro — like farmers across Georgia — is worried that the state's tough new immigration law is scaring away an illegal immigrant workforce.
Reporting from Wray, Ga. — It was a Tuesday afternoon at the height of blackberry season, and the Paulk family farm was short 100 pickers. It was Don Pedro's job to find them.
The Georgia Department of Agriculture this month released a survey of farmers who said they needed to fill more than 11,000 positions lasting from one day to a year. Critics of U.S. farming practices have long said Americans would take such jobs if they paid better.
Don Pedro said his job has never been so tough, nor workers so scarce. His boss had told the state Labor Department he needed pickers, but he had received no responses. He wasn't surprised, even though the jobless rate in Irwin County was 13%. Few here believe that native Southerners, white or black, wish to return to the land their ancestors once sharecropped or tended in bondage.
Pedro Guerrero, 54, the smiling, soft-spoken man in black cowboy boots whom everyone calls Don Pedro, was barreling down two-lane roads in a compact Chevy on a hunt for his own people. He was searching amid the trailers and tumbledown rental houses and mercados that have sprung up since the 1990s, when waves of Latinos began arriving in Georgia to harvest food, serve it in restaurants and scrape it from soiled plates.
Don Pedro kept one hand on the wheel. The other sorted paper scraps stuffed in the pocket of his Western shirt. On a flip phone, he punched in numbers for guys named Felipe and Miguel and Sixto, surfing an analog network of cousins and friends of friends and old sources who might know where the hard workers
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Here we go,
Another five minute search
Georgia Department of Labor
Georgia One-Stop
Job Search Results
Sunday June 19, 2011 at 18:21:28 EDT
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Job Location: Statewide (all counties in GA)
Job Category: Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Occupations
Job Type: All Job Types
Search Results
Job Category: Farming, Fishing, and Forestry Occupations
Job Title Job
Type Number Of
Openings
ASSISTANT FARM MANAGER Full Time 1
BERRY PICKER Full Time 1
BLUEBERRY HARVESTER Full Time 1
BLUEBERRY PICKER Full Time 3
COMMERCIAL BEEKEEPER Full Time 1
CREW LEADER/CREW MEMBER Full Time 1
CUCUMBER HARVESTER Full Time 1
Farmworkers and Laborers, Crop Full Time 3
FARM HAND Full Time 1
FARM MACHINE OPERATOR Full Time 2
FARM WORKER Full Time 2
FARM WORKER DIVERSIFIED II Full Time 2
FARMER’S Full Time 1
FARMWORKER Full Time 5
FARMWORKER Part Time 1
FARMWORKER DIVERSIFIED Full Time 1
FARMWORKER DIVERSIFIED II Full Time 1
FARMWORKER VEGETABLE Full Time 1
FARMWORKER, FRUIT II Full Time 1
FARMWORKER, PIGS Full Time 1
FARMWORKER, VEGETABLE I Full Time 1
FARMWORKERS, FARM AND RANCH ANIMALS Full Time 1
FIELD CROP WORKER Full Time 1
GRADER AND SORTER Full Time 1
HARVERSTER - BEANS Full Time 1
HARVERSTER - CANTALOUPE Full Time 1
HARVERSTER - SQUASH Full Time 1
HARVERSTER - WATERMELON Full Time 1
HARVEST WORKER, FRUIT Full Time 1
HARVESTER Full Time 1
HARVESTER - BLACKBERRY Full Time 1
LANDSCAPE LABORER Part Time 1
LOGGING EQUIPMENT OPERATOR Full Time 1
Nursery Workers Full Time 1
NURSERY TECHNICIAN Full Time 1
NURSERY WORKER Full Time 2
OPERATIONS ASSOCIATE Full Time 1
TOMATO HARVESTER Full Time 1
TRACTOR OPERATOR Full Time 1
TREE CUTDOWN WORKER Full Time 1
TREE PLANTER Full Time 1
ZOOLIGICAL OPERATIONS SUPERVIOR Full Time 1
The large boxes hold 96 ounces of berries, and the fastest pickers fill five boxes an hour, earning $22.50 an hour before taxes.
I seriously doubt this. That would make the berries about almost $4/lb on labor alone. I get them in the store for about $3/lb. No farmer is taking that kind of loss.
Math check!
labor cost : $22.50 / [ (96 oz/box) x (1lb/16oz) x 5box) ]
labor cost : $22.50 / [ (96 oz/box) x (1lb/16oz) x 5box) ]
labor cost : $22.50 / 30lb
labor cost : $0.75/lb
That assumes the article is discussing weight ounces and not volume ounces. I don't know the density of blackberries.
Thirty pounds of blackberries an hour is some amazingly fast picking.
“I seriously doubt this. That would make the berries about almost $4/lb on labor alone.”
96oz/box times 5 boxes/hour is 30 lbs/hour. 30 lbs for $22.50 is $0.75 a pound. I think. :)
You may be on to something...as this photo is 30 pounds of blackberries and to gather this amount in an hour would require someone to pick 1/2 pound per minute non-stop and while possible, it would be difficult for many to maintain that pace all day:
THIRTY POUNDS OF FRESHLY PICKED BLACKBERRIES
They’re the funniest looking blackberries I’ve ever seen. They sure do look more like blueberries.
They’re the funniest looking blackberries I’ve ever seen. They sure do look more like blueberries.
Oh you are so right!!! With the server problems on FR today it is easy to get your berries mixed up!
FIVE POUNDS/7 OUNCES FRESHLY PICKED BLACKBERRIES
The point I was trying to make is that I expected these jobs to be easier to find since the article stated The Georgia Department of Agriculture this month released a survey of farmers who said they needed to fill more than 11,000 positions lasting from one day to a year. It seems like the site where you found jobs, the GA Dept. of Labor, would offer some resources to fill 11,000 jobs for Georgia farmers.
Nice looking blueberries. May I ask where you picked them?
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to praise your berries, not to seize them.
Don't use any under 18 because of the labor laws that Lowery placed several governors ago. It is too difficult to deal with the scheduling.
But the big thing is the liability if they get hurt. It is bad enough dealing with L&I when an of-age worker falls off a ladder or gets clothing caught in machinery. As a matter of fact, we have had two female workers in the past, walk out of the normal walk-way after their shift was over, in the winter, slip and fall on ice.
Now they are on permanent L&I disability. Go figure.
The point that I made, I believe is that the 11,000 jobs are under the table illegal alien, low wage hires or else there would be thousands of field positions on the Net.
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