Apple farms having trouble hiring Americans.

[joshh]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130840422

This is what you get when you pay Americans to not work. Discuss...

[IRON-E]

Reminds me of the mockery movie "A day without a mexican"

[Eecen]

Have you ever picked apples?

$15 for 800lbs of apples. It isn't very easy work.


Cherries are where it's at;
$2.05 per 10-pound bucket



Apricots: $17.94 per half bin
Peaches: $16.58 per half bin
Prune plums: $17.56 per half bin
(bin = 800lbs)

[Kershaw]

yeah... see this is a clear example of why some jobs are going to hispanics.

i've seen a lot of people complain that hispanics are stealing their jobs... but... if they are willing to work harder (increased productivity) and a lower cost (increased capital for the company) they are going to get hired. and whites arent even trying to get a job? obviously, $120/day is not a lot, but that's not super terrible. that's like $25k a year.

this is pure capitalism.

i love the irony that most people who complain about hispanics also complain that we need more pure capitalism in the usa.

[84driver]

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...ryId=130840422


This is what you get when you pay Americans to not work. Discuss...

I heard this on NPR in my E30 also.

Conversely, I think the true problem is that we allow immigrants/illegals to be underpaid and work below real living wages. If it wasn't so easy to hire non-Americans, they wouldn't have any choice but to raise wages and prices to reflect the real cost of paying a worker a living wage including health insurance etc. Then Americans would be happy to work. An unskilled (no previous apple experience) American worker is unlikely to make even minimum wage at the current rates -- as the article states.

Of course we can't compete on labor cost with countries who require little or no benefits for workers and have less rights for employees. But, that would require us to put tariffs on imported goods from countries that are undercutting us using these methods. Free trade isn't really equal between countries with wildly different labor laws, and this is often overlooked.

Immigrants & illegals will also withstand a lot more employer abuse (unsafe working conditions, no overtime, physical abuse) because complaining leads to getting fired. This lowers the price of goods even farther than what would be a 'fair' American market price.

In many other industrialized countries it is MUCH harder for non-citizens to get jobs. We are hurting both our citizen workers and our immigrant workers with our lack of employer oversight and porous border.

BUT most Americans like goods as cheap as they can get them, doesn't matter where or how they get them. Corporations lobby heavily to keep the government from finding out who they hire. Can you imagine if every employer actually had to prove their employees were legal and demonstrate that they are working in safe and legal conditions?? Right now you barely need to get more than a social security number (regardless if it's valid or not) to hire an employee.

Immigrant workers also send a large amount of their wages out of the country. The money does not get recycled into our economy. Instead it goes to support countries with less human rights and laws we don't agree with. We practically are giving away a large section of our economy.

The 'free market' knows nothing about human rights and will take any advantages it can find. If workers were forced to find employment in their own country they would also be forced to deal with (and hopefully change) the bad conditions in their country rather than skipping town and just taking advantage of better conditions elsewhere. Right now problems are being avoided instead of fixed.

Unemployment puts money back into our economy, keeping people spending domestically when they would otherwise be hoarding cash. For instance, it helps keep people using preventative health care which is far cheaper than taxpayers paying for emergency room visits down the line.

The issue is not unemployment. The issue is that we have a ton of jobs in the US that basically abuse workers and pay them less than living wages. I lived in South Texas for years and saw it with my own eyes. US workers know their rights and generally won't stand for abusive jobs. If we want to solve the problem, we have to hold corporations to a higher standard and keep them from abusing workers. This means we have to keep them from lobbying our politicians, and we have to let our representatives know how we feel so that corporations can't get away with it any more.

The easiest and quickest change you can make now is by buying goods and services from companies that do honest business and treat their employees fairly. This isn't always easy to find out, and may mean paying a higher price upfront, but that money will go back into our economy and to the right places. This will have a positive impact on the issue and our economy without any kind of regulation. Right now people generally buy whatever is cheapest and therefore abused employees is what the market wants!


tl;dr: You wouldn't take the immigrant jobs either if you had to endure the same abuse and working conditions. Buy from honest, proper companies and let your representatives know that you support American jobs at living wages!

[mrsleeve]

yeah... see this is a clear example of why some jobs are going to hispanics.

i've seen a lot of people complain that hispanics are stealing their jobs... but... if they are willing to work harder (increased productivity) and a lower cost (increased capital for the company) they are going to get hired. and whites arent even trying to get a job? obviously, $120/day is not a lot, but that's not super terrible. that's like $25k a year.

this is pure capitalism.

i love the irony that most people who complain about hispanics also complain that we need more pure capitalism in the usa.

When you can sit for 2 years (ok 99 weeks) with out having to get a job why would you even look or think about something like this??? The standard 26 weeks you pay for is one thing, and when shit is really bad like we have had a modest extension of say an additional 10-20 weeks is reasonable IMO in the most dire of circumstances.

I used to cut tassels of fucking seed corn for 7.50 an hour and that was good money. I would do it again in a heart beat if thats what I had to do to put food on the table, in the dogs bowel, and roof over our heads

[cale]

Unfortunately a lot of people do not posses that feeling of obligation to get off their ass to make ends meet. They hold a sense of entitlement as though they are too good or valuable to put in a hard days work for themselves and their families. Consumers have made this the norm yes, but that does no excuse those who are unemployed from doing what is necessary to provide for their families. I have a friend who would rather sit at home collecting EI rather than getting off his ass and getting a minimum wage job, that is pathetic.

A very similar situation to the link in the OP took place in BC several years ago and I still believe it is going on. A local flower farm offered to provide transportation, food and respectable wages to the homeless and unemployed from downtown out to their farm to help with the huge task of harvesting their flowers. No one took them up on their extremely generous offer, they would rather sit and bitch than get up and earn.

[mrsleeve]

^
I have offered a job to a few people that I know and offered to help others get on in other trades I work with, that would pay them 2-3 and in some cases 4+ times what they make now or just be employed. No one has ever taken me up on it, as it required doing hard things a long ways from home

[Kershaw]

If it wasn't so easy to hire non-Americans, they wouldn't have any choice but to raise wages and prices to reflect the real cost of paying a worker a living wage including health insurance etc.

if they raise what they pay their workers, they cannot compete with foreign apple growers. it's in the article.

[Vedubin01]

do what Alabama is purposing, using inmates to do these jobs and fill the void.

[e30e]

Shocking news, you know all my times working, studying, and observing agriculture both on farms and ranches everyone was Icelandic white people wearing tailored clothes....no shit it's hard to find Americas willing to work on a farm, it's hard work. Why do you think most farmers speak spanish?

Hell even using cheaper labor, fruit and veggie production is expensive hence why it's so expensive at the store.

[Farbin Kaiber]

So, who here actually has some experience working on a farm?

[mrsleeve]

^

Me Me Me Me I do I do I do

[devon.818]

im 18. 120/day is fine with me. i would LOVE to work in the open air, get a tan, maybe snack on some tasty golden delicious's. lol

not for a career, but its good to try things out. and hispanics stealing jobs? yeah they sneak in when we are at home playing video games thinking about going to an interview then deciding you need to level up in halo first....yeah they steal "our" jobs. don't you have to actually "have" the job before you can call it your's? so they aren't stealing jack shit...no they are actually helping the economy and do ing things we dont want to do.

but honestly, people are gonnna bitch regardless.

[herbivor]

I offered a homeless guy a job doing construction work. He said, "I dunno man. Sounds like hard work. How much does it pay." I said," More than what you're making now." He said. "I dunno man, I do alright." (He was satisfied begging for money and doing no work). I think we should have programs to help people get on their feet but some people are just crazy and are satisfied doing as little as possible.