Posted on 05/29/2006 3:34:54 PM PDT by SJackson
OCEANSIDE, Calif. - Tomato grower Luawanna Hallstrom understands how paths cross in the shadowy world of illegal immigrant and employer.
Her three-generation family farm needed workers to harvest a crop in 2001, so it hired 300 farmhands. All their documents appeared in order, she said.
Then federal authorities found that three-fourths of the workers were illegal immigrants, and that left the peak harvest in ruins.
"People say, `You should get those employers that hire the undocumented!' Well, wait a minute. They have documents, but they're fraudulent. We are supposed to take them at face value - otherwise you get into these discrimination issues," Hallstrom said.
(Excerpt) Read more at charlotte.com ...
As enforcement has intensified in recent years and would multiply further under proposals now before Congress, growers like Hallstrom say they are under a strain over whether their fields will have enough workers...Hallstrom remedied her 2001 crisis by hiring farm workers through the federal government's temporary guest agricultural worker program. The program is shunned by most farmers because it's too costly and its bureaucratic delays threaten crops, she said.
Yup, unlawful employers will soon have to follow the more, use more costly labor, and encounter bureaucratic delays. Like the rest of us.
And yes, I know lettuce will be $5 a head and tomatoes unavailable, so it's not necessary to tell me. I'll eat cabbage.
We grow our own tomatoes. The bonus--they actually taste like tomatoes, unlike the cardboard tomatoes you get at the supermarket.
I'll have an Elk Burger. Hold the lettuce. Hold the tomatoes.
Oh, please, if you have the same TOUGH standard for the paperwork for everyone there's no discrimination.
You are expected to live by the same rules as the rest of us do. If you can't abide by the labor rules your business requires, get out of the business.
Someone will build a robot to automate their cultivation.
Ain't nunya boys heard of a Chain-Gang? Ain't that whas we has prisons fer?
You know, don't you, that we got the cardboard tomatoes when the last guest worker program went away, and the growers had to find a tomato sturdy enough to be picked by machine.
There may be Americans willing to do the job, but not enough of them, and not reliably enough.
Fresh peas are already rare for the same reason. What produce will we lose next?
Oh, please, if you have the same TOUGH standard for the paperwork for everyone there's no discrimination.... You are expected to live by the same rules as the rest of us do. If you can't abide by the labor rules your business requires, get out of the business.
Imagine firms which run security and drug checks. We can't do the check, don't want to discriminate against drug dealers or former criminals. Current violations excepted.
Or, we'll just get more produce from Mexico directly, as we already do with avocados.
Eli Whitney is channeling this conversation.
If peas can't be produced legally in the US, we'll have to import them.
Or, we'll just get more produce from Mexico directly, as we already do with avocados.
Exactly, same as we do with many products.
Even those of us who are most vehemently opposed to illegal immigration are willing to look at guest workers for the farm jobs that traditionally taken by migrants but only after the laws are enforced.
When I was a kid, "Kids" picked fruits and veggies.
TT
"AMES, Iowa--Common produce items such as grapes, cauliflower, peas, broccoli, spinach and lettuce can travel an average of more than 2,000 miles before reaching Midwestern markets, according to an updated report from the Leopold Center for Sustainable Agriculture. Moreover, at least one-third of the asparagus, cucumbers, eggplant, squash and tomatoes shipped within the conventional U.S. food system comes from Mexico. "
http://www.leopold.iastate.edu/news/newsreleases/2002/foodmiles2.htm
"Their study also showed that cabbage, cucumbers, onions, sweet corn and tomatoes originated from 15 or more states, while green peas and table grapes only came from California. Mexico was a source of 21 of the 30 produce items investigated, with 43 percent of the squash arrivals originating from Mexico. "
So tell me again why we need 10-20 million illegals?
There are robot vacuums and lawn mowers and there are combines harvesting all kinds of crops already. Automation is moving ahead and when it does what exactly will we do will millions and millions of unskilled foreigners?
We don't need any to assist on farms, if you don't care that, eventually, much of US agribusiness will shift production to South America.
It doesn't bother me, as I believe in free trade. Some of the more protectionist on the board might not be too keen on the idea.
And it won't move ahead if we maintain a system based on abusive wage rates and employer labor practices. And if tomatoes or avocados are too expensive to produce here, we'll import them. As we do with, for example, clothing from China, a clearly abusive labor market by American standards. Without getting into the many ramifications of trade with third world countries, we import the product, we don't import the laborers and make it here. Which we easily could.
When I was a kid, they worked at McDonalds, mowed lawns, painted houses and bagged groceries. Still do in rural areas.
Retirees and housewives did too.
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