Two recent stories, highlight new, but perhaps not entirely unexpected, labor challenges in states that want to get tough with illegal immigrants. Namely, where are American workers?
There is this story Thursday From The Associated Press: Alabama’s immigration law was supposed to create farm jobs for unemployed Americans, but few of them have shown any interest since the measure went into effect. Many of the Americans who have ventured out into the fields to pick crops have quit after a single day, telling farmers the work is too hard and not worth the pay.
The agriculture industry suffered the most immediate impact. Farmers said they will have to downsize or let crops die on the vine. As the season’s harvest winds down, many are worried about next year.
And there’s this Oct. 5 story from the New York Times: Here’s the headline — Hiring locally for farm work is no cure-all. The story focused on a farmer in Colorado who cut back on foreign workers to hire more local ones.
Six hours was enough, between the 6 a.m. start time and noon lunch break, for the first wave of local workers to quit. Some simply never came back and gave no reason. Twenty-five of them said specifically, according to farm records, that the work was too hard.
This just goes to show that Americans don’t want to work – they want a pay check. I’ve talked to too many business owners that have the same problems with much simpler work. So many people feel like they are simply entitled to money. Whatever happened to people doing whatever they could to provide for their family. Yeah, farming is hard work – but people need to do what they can to take care of their families. This is the problem with entitlement programs – in reality it promotes laziness in Americans.
All this says is farmers are used to paying under minimum wage. Illegals can’t complain since they are illegal and it is cheaper to live across the border.
Americans cannot survive on what they pay the illegals. Citizens do not get free food, subsidized housing, free education, free heatlth care, etc. as do the illegals. Americans actually have to pay extra taxes for the illegals utilizing our services. We pay for thier education, for their health care, for their babies that they cross the border to give birth too… So yes, Americans will not work for $2.00 to bust their butt when $1.50 is going to pay for the illegals to live better than they do.
I wonder if the workers would stick around more if their wages were more in line with American standards? In the U.S., our food is subsidized in so many ways; one of them is the incredibly low wages farmers can pay to illegal immigrants.
Also it will raise the price of food to possiblly afford a better pay rate for the workers, or the farmer will find new machinery to replace human labor. We are spoiled by cheap food that illegal labor provides.
Yeah – this story is a bit misleading. Why did they not cover the EEOC case against Hamilton Growers in Georgia – where American workers were systemically eliminated and placed in low wage positions subservient to illegals. EEOC indicates this is the tip of the iceberg. Americans like any other people will work whatever job is necessary to survive – remember the show “Dirty Jobs”? As one poster pointed out – it’s all about a fair/legal wage. The employers are allowed to subvert the law and pay below market wages – also learned today that ICE decided not to deport entire classes of illegals who have committed certain crimes…The so called farm crises in Alabama is the cost of dirty dealing by the farmers – pay a fair wage and the workers will come – it’s how the true free market works. The farmers who hired the illegals should have been arrested a long time ago. This insanity has gone on for too long – the plan to consolidate Mexico, US and Canada in the North America (with a third world standard of living) has almost come to fruition – Lou Dobbs reported on this for years – but called a racist. To date, over 45 thousand people are dead on the US/Mexican border – border remains wide open, narco wars fueled by banks and US/Mexico continue unabated, while we get groped at the airport and highway checkpoints. We had our chance to straighten this out years ago – but many of you believed the sold out media instead of the modern day Paul Revere’s – labeling them conspiracy theorist. Good luck as yet another chapter in US history progresses towards an ugly close.
Illegals can live on less money than the American citizens can because the illegals don’t mind renting a house and have four families living in a house that was meant for one family. And they get free food, free health coverage, free education. These things are not available to American citizens.
Ok lets dispell the myth that illegals are required to do the work.
I have many stories from my parents who were raised in a farming community (central IL) and on a farm (MI). One told many stories of kids earning money in summer detaseling corn, digging potatos, and harvesting crops. The one raised on the farm (and all the relatives I met from that side) told of americans (gasp) who traveled around every harvest season to harvest the crops. That was their job for part of the year.
There are 3 main reasons why there is this “worker shortage”
1. Some farmers have grown addicted to illegal labor willing to work for sub-standard wages, bad working conditions, and no goverment oversite. The workers are not gonna complain (they are illegal after all), the local politicians for the area recieve bribes, I mean campain contributions, and the federal goverment has no gutz to enforce the wage, immegration, or working condition laws.
2. You have a generation of spoiled rotten kids who think working hard over the summer is beneath them. This falls on parents and the community who do not instill values, work ethic or even the basic concept that if you want something in life you have to WORK FOR IT, EVEN IF IT TAKES TIME. A great majority have all the toys (electronic, cars, cloths ect) just given to them. Maybe if we required the ones who get into trouoble to be sentenced to a “boot camp” working on a farm they may change their ways.
3. We have a welfare system that rewards people to have more children, have children as minors, generation of families to stay on welfare (and public housing), and concentrate on how to get/stay in the system vs trying to get out. Funny how welfare is “not enough” for a good life (the argument used by many) but so many families are multi-generational.
So in short we need to deport illegal aliens (PERIOD), tell kids if you want money to work for it, and if kids get into trouble boot work.
Have govermental agencies ACUALLY PAY ATTENTION TO FARM LABOR LAWS AND ENFORCEMT.
Lastly if you are on welfare and healthy enough to work, if a job is available you HAVE TO TAKE IT. If you choose to have (ex) another kid, refuse to take a “farm job” if availabe, or won’t even try you COMPLETELY LOOSE YOUR BENIFITS. I am not saying some aid (example child care) may not be in order. But whatever aid is given it is limited, not replacing work, and designed to get you off it.
You be suprised how many workers are available when illegals leave and incentives to say on welfare disapear.