Posted on 09/03/2012 4:08:19 PM PDT by bronxville
‘Extortion’: Why Did the Labor Department ‘Drop the Hammer’ on Oregon Farmers?
"Oregon farmers and state officials are furious with the U.S. Labor Department after federal authorities in July put a hold on thousands of dollars worth of blueberries, citing “widespread” record-keeping and minimum wage violations, Eric Mortenson reports for The Oregonian.
“[T]he department invoked a “hot goods” provision of labor law that prohibited shipment of the berries. Labor officials also notified wholesalers that berries from the farms would be subject to the order and should not be processed or shipped,” according to the report.
“Hot goods” orders are used by the department’s Wage and Hour Division to halt the production and/or sale of goods its believes were produced in violation of the Fair Labor Standards Act.
But here‘s what has members of Oregon’s congressional delegation and the Oregon Farm Bureau particularly disturbed: The federal agency told the farmers that they could make everything go away if they paid “a fine and back wages and sign a consent judgment admitting wrong and agreeing not to contest the order even if subsequent information exonerated the farms.”
It’s “extortion,” said Greg Ditchen whose farm had to pay $169,816 in back wages and penalties. He had no other choice. It was either that or let his crops go to waste.
“They put a hot goods order on our fruit, and after they had the money they said we had to sign a paper saying we were wrong,” Ditchen said. “We had to make a business decision and sign the paper.”"
CONTINUED AT SITE: http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/post_article
First they came for the blueberry farmers, but I wasn’t a blueberry farmer...
Mu, as a one-time pecan grower, I've had my own dealings as an agricultural producer with the Wage & Hour Division of the Labor Department.
And the nicest thing I can say about them is that they are inordinately stupid, bureaucratically ossified, so unreasonable as to be defensive about it and unbelievably inefficient. A more accurate and telling assessment, however, is that their supervisors are corruptible as a Latin American petty fiefdom.
On the basis of experience, I've absolutely no doubt whose side I'm inclined to believe in this case.
Between Hilda Solis and the Obama administration, it would not surprise if this was a compensatory move for Obama having to miss a couple of fundraisers to go to New Orleans.
These people are simply not worth your defending.
The federales prohibit certain forms of child labor ~ presumably "for the chillun" ~ but also to insure labor for unemployed adults.
At the time the child labor restrictions were enacted the federal minimum wage law didn't apply to farm work. That didn't happen until 1966.
So it wasn't like the federales were working on a grand scheme to disposses farmers ~ that happened later and was written out by farm implement manufacturers! One man, one tractor, ten farms eh!
You know very well none of those guys want to pay an American wage so they go after illegals who will work for less.
BTW, 20 million illegal aliens later NO ONE WANTS TO DEFEND THOSE FARMERS EITHER
Minimum wage didn’t apply to farmers until 1990-or-so, so we had nothing to do with the Wage & Hour Division until then.
I’ve never met a more pig-headed, arrogant...and ultimately lazy...group of people. They knew nothing about the industry they had been assigned to regulate — and they couldn’t be bothered to learn a damn thing.
I’m betting this particular event really is extortion.
Nothing as sweet as life lessons
Historically, there's really only one effective way to deal with extortionists. If you give them what they want, they just come back for more later.
Hope everyone enjoys their canned food from China because the American farm is about to be regulated out of existence.
The American family farm was forced out of business gradually over the last century ~ their replacements were said by many to be vastly superior!
We all have to make sure to “Thank”,Sen. Tom Coburn ( R ) Oklahoma,for being the person who singlehandidly, let the stalinist, ‘Food Safety and Modernization Act’ pass,by ‘Unanimous Consent’,during the 2010 lameduck session. “Thanks” to Coburn,Obama now has the right to control and regulate the entire food supply,incuding Home garden’s. Now,Obama can use denial of food as a weapon against the American people. Thanks for nothing, Coburn you Bleephead!
It isn’t just the family farm that is going away it is all farming. I know because I farm. If you think having to depend on foreign oil is a risk to our security, wait until we are dependent on other countries for our food. America needs a wake up call. I have to worry about water, pests, weather, labor and oppressive govt regulations along with volatile markets. All the while risking millions of dollars every year before anything is in the barn. Rather than a govt that is there to help us be more competitive in a global market, they are out to get us with an army of small minded bureaucrats. Our problem is much bigger than the loss of family farms.
Blueberries are grown in the Willamette Valley.
We're not talking John Day or Burns, here.
Obama and following presidents.It is like giving a president you trust certain powers that you feel he needs and will use well without considering what a president from the other side could and would do with those powers. Remember RICO? This particular power would seem to have no excuse at all no matter who is president.
I grow blueberries in my backyard. If I let them they’ll grow into a tree a good 30 feet tall in this particular microclimate so I have to really prune them back every three or four years. This year we had moderate drought in this area so I let the birds have them.
It's simply rank discrimination at work, not just low wages.
The Mexican farm labor contractors make sure only their buddies get jobs - the UFW sure as hell doesn't tolerate Whitey taking "their" jobs - and the farmers don't give a damn as long as the product comes in.
So it's just a exclusion gig. You won't see any Black people, or Asians, or Indians, or whatever out there.
And you sure won't see any American teenagers ever again. They'd just get beat up if they actually tried to do the work.
That's the way business works. Lower the overhead as much as possible to maximize profits. If a business isn't profitable, it goes under. I seriously doubt that Americans would willingly pay the price for a quart of blueberry's if the farmer were stuck with paying higher wages, insurance, etc, etc, etc.
That and mechanization would bring the price down, encourage more berry growers to plant more berries, and we'd all have more and cheaper berries and no illegals.
Same with tomatos ~ except they've gotta' breed the taste back in (now that they know why tomatos lost their taste) ~
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