Posted on 06/01/2006 11:22:23 AM PDT by SJackson
LOUISVILLE, KY. | For years, Shelby County tobacco farmer Paul Hornback has advertised locally for hired hands. The results are always the same - not a single offer to help tend to his burley crop.
To get his tobacco planted and harvested, Hornback relies on migrant laborers obtained through the federal H2A agricultural labor program.
Like other Kentucky leaf growers, Hornback is keeping close tabs on the immigration debate unfolding in Congress.
Migrant labor makes up about three-quarters of the tobacco work force in Kentucky - the nation's leading burley producer, said Joe Cain, director of national affairs for Kentucky Farm Bureau.
Hornback said the availability of labor is a big concern in the burley belt, where tobacco is still cut and put in barns by hand for curing.
"If Congress fails to make some type of usable guest worker program in their legislation and places heavy penalties on employers, then it makes it almost impossible to get workers," Hornback said recently.
The Senate version features a new guest worker program and a chance for citizenship for illegal immigrants as well as heightened border security. By contrast, legislation passed last year by the House focuses on border security, has no guest worker program and would expose illegal immigrants to felony charges.
Tobacco grower Rod Kuegel said the House approach "seems ludicrous."
"They can build a brick wall on that border if they want to and they're not going to solve the problem like that," he said by phone.
Kuegel said that focusing on border security doesn't get to the main causes behind the influx of illegal immigrants - the availability of unfilled jobs in the U.S. and the desire of people on the other side of the border to come across for greater opportunities.
"As long as there's work, nobody to do it and somebody comes up and is willing, then those people are going to get together somehow," he said.
Kuegel, who is raising 100 acres of tobacco in Daviess County in western Kentucky, said he wouldn't have a crop without migrant workers he gets through the H2A temporary guest worker program.
Still, Kuegel would like to see changes to the program as part of any final immigration bill. He said he would like to get a credit for his costs for transporting his migrant workers from Mexico to Kentucky. He also would like to see changes to the wage formula.
The current formula is based on wages in the overall agricultural sector, he said, which can set artificially high wages for field work.
Kuegel and Hornback said they pay their H2A workers $8.24 an hour and cover housing, utilities and transportation costs for the field hands.
Marc Grossman, spokesman for the United Farm Workers of America, said such a formula change would result in field hands "working for a lot less money."
The current formula is based on wages in the overall agricultural sector, he said, which can set artificially high wages for field work. ...Kuegel and Hornback said they pay their H2A workers $8.24 an hour and cover housing, utilities and transportation costs for the field hands.
Not to worry, more legal laborers, costs will go down.
ping
If you only offer a wage that migrants will take, then you will only get migrants.
Al Gore, comes to mind, he is just rambling around aimlessly on a few global warming gigs, and could use full time work... he boasted of his experience raising tobacco, all phases of the work...
That's what I thought. How much money are they offering?
Seems to me that $8.24/hr is pretty good if you also provide housing, utilities, and transportation costs.
In the midwest, farmers have no problem getting many high school kids to work in fields for minimum wage or a big more. Detassling corn is not an easy or fun job, but it's almost a rite of passage for rural midwest kids.
So, are tobacco farmers not paying minimum wage? Is this all a ploy to keep cheap labor and avoid taxes and insurance costs?
I believe all these stories by the pro-ILLEGAL press about as much as I believe in their polls, which is to say, I don't.
One summer in HS (early 1980's), I worked harvesting tobacco for $2.50/hr with no housing, utilities nor transportation costs included. Hard work, but I was seriously pumped that summer. It burned my a$$ to see taxes taken out of my tiny hard earned paycheck which in part helped make me a conservative.
I wish journalists would be more specific. The word 'migrant' can mean lots of things, including US citizens coming from other states.
Dare I say that if access to cheap labor evaporated that these farmers would be forced to modernize and use machinery? The article then goes on to say how these guys are trying to pay less for this immigrant labor. The point is, that they are using outdated methods of harvesting and they will never be able to increase their productivity using these antiquated labor intensive means. That is one of the reasons you saw the rapid rise in the use of robotics in the auto industry - the cost of labor.
Finally, it is not legal migration that is the issue. (This farmer sounds like he is using legal means.) It is the illegal migration issue that is of concern.
Kick able-bodied folks off welfare and other freebies and many of these jobs would have waiting lines of Americans.
That's my take. (See my post #11).
During his time interning for Sir Walter Raleigh, he took the initiative in hybridizing the first tobacco plant.
Ok, I thought the libs wanted to do away with tobacco? Why are they worried that someone can't get laborers to harvest it? If there really is a problem, which I very much doubt, it is due to the bad press tobacco gets and the brainwashing that the young kids who would be doing these jobs get against coming in contact with tobacco in any form!
Then Mexico will have an illegal migrant problem. Ha ha ha.
Yes, his tobacco is getting picked. Increasing the supply of labor and depressing wages is an option though, the one I suspect he'd prefer.
I'll pluck tobacco worms for $50/hour.
An estimated $20 billion American dollars was taken out of the American economy and sent back home by immigrant workers to be fed into the Mexican economy in '05, and the amount will no doubt be even higher this year. Taxing American workers to pay other able bodied Americans not to work and put their paychecks back into the American economy while at the same time paying to haul in Mexicans who will send most of their paychecks home to Mexico doesn't make good economic sense to me.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.