Posted on 09/03/2012 6:30:02 AM PDT by DeaconBenjamin
Sorry no sympathy from me.. Farmers looking for the cheapest immigrant labor that taxpayers always end up subsidizing (cotton picking ring a bell?) need to use mechanized pickers or pay a wage that Americans will accept. I don’t accept that farmers should bring in poverty that the rest of us must subsidize.
Interesting way to do business when all you have to do is keep track of the hours worked and how much was paid.
If the Politicians and Elected leaders in Oregon were truly “Outraged” at these heavy handed gestapo tactics, they would have had the State Police Arrest and Jail every last one of these folks from the various Federal Agencies taking part in this shakedown, for their ADMITTED FELONY EXTORTION.
Why are today’s kids so spoiled they won’t accept this as a stepping stone job? It surely is not ignoble.
I don’t think you folks are reading this completely prior to posting your comments. For the most part, they did have wage and hour documents. The government challenged the validity of them based upon their stupid unbased assumptions.
The farmers were paying correctly.
I’ve run into this in wage and hour audits with L&I on piece rate work. They assume everyone is lazy and can’t make rate!
If you follow the calculations, Labor & Industry was stating that the piece rates or pounds picked were too high for one person and thus were dividing them in half based upon their assumption that two workers were on one ticket. If half of the production X the rate per pound did not make minimum wage the employer was hit with an assessment.
60 lbs per hour X .28 = $16.80 per hour.
If you divided that in half 30 X .28 = $8.40 and thus the employer must pay a pickup amount on the original and imaginary employee.
$16.80 is not a bad hourly rate for unskilled farm labor.
Better than that. Just pay flat hourly rate and make them earn less.
Problem solved.
Is an agreement signed under duress enforceable?
Sorry, I remembered the rate at .28 when it was .33 per pound.
60 x .33 = $19.80 per hour
It’s dodgy whenever dealing with the FEDS because whether it is or not is entirely up to the agency, until it reaches the federal circuit.
My thoughts are: How did it get this far? It would have taken all but a day to get relief.
The IRS agents make similar assumptions in their audits and hold people at financial gunpoint.
I had an IRS agent press for criminal fraud for unrecorded gross receipts against several clients years ago by taking the pounds of flour purchased and multiplying by his recipe of pounds of flour per pizza based upon menu price to find unrecorded gross receipts.
I took seven cases to Federal Tax Count and walked in with two pizza boxes taped shut to show why they were wrong. They used a thin crust pizza recipe and my client made Sicilian pizzas. Their assumption cost my clients over $50,000 just to prove they were right.
From the article:
A worker picking two buckets an hour, for example, approximately 28 pounds, would earn the equivalent of $9.24 an hour. Farmers and others say the best pickers can earn $30 an hour or more.
By getting too greedy the Feeb ended up with nothing. Had only one pizza maker been targeted the cost of defending would have been prohibitive, but when several could combine their cases, they could afford to prevail.
Why the stupid matter wasn’t solved with a letter to the IRS about pizza recipes (and copies of menus) is another issue. The IRS ought to have been charged with frivolous prosecution.
If a farmer can’t get a legal worker (a high school kid or an adult) to work in their fields, then they need to either raise the wages, or start using mechanized pickers. That’s the way a real free market should work.
But in no way should the cost of their savings in labor by using cheap labor performed by immigrants (illegal and other) be passed onto taxpayers, which is what happens. I’ll pay more for blueberries if they are picked in a way that doesn’t cost me in taxes. Actually I won’t because I have 9 blueberry bushes that I pick myself.
In today’s corrupt crony political environment the USA labor market is distorted whereby politicians turn a blind eye to illegals, or bring in a steady stream of other immigrants that give profits for a few, but cost society billions in costs of welfare etc by usurping the free market.
Bray - FYI in case you haven’t seen this.
We’re assuming it’s mostly illegales there.
In a competent Federal oversight they wouldn’t be quibbling about star berry pickers. They’d want to know if the workers were legals or not.
Distortion of the free market happens because of subsidies to some and the costs passed on to others. Politicians taking care of constituencies bends free market rules. We need to end all the giveaways to business, corporations and individuals that gives us distortions and redistribution of wealth.
The point here is the government used extortion to force a private company to pay a fee and sign an admission of guilt with their only other option being to let their crop spoil and go out of business.
I am sure if the workers were dues paying union members there would be no problem. All of the workers would then make the same amount and there would be no incentive for any to work faster to make more money than the slower pickers. The cost increases would either be passes on as the market allowed or your blue berries will be from China or South America. Another bit of our job base forced overseas by fascism and unions.
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