Colorado farmers could be using prison inmates. (illegal immigrants, arsenal, fast food)

[Benicar]

Originally Posted by andreabeth

It is easier to come here and mooch.

Exactly!

[malamute]

Originally Posted by zacatecana

If Walmart pays $10 an hour and their employees can live on that salary, even if they barely make it, why wouldnt an employee working the fields not make it for the same salary?

What if the employer at the fields really cant afford to pay more than $10 an hour, what then? Will you be okay will loosing all our farms, fields and anything related to agriculture, to foreign countries? Are you okay with paying more money for all your imported food? As it is, we are already loosing so many companies to foreign countries.

Either we as US citizens take those jobs and work the fields or bring in immigrants to stay and do the jobs. No more come for a season and leave. If we want them to do the job, we better be prepared to offer the American Dream to them as well or we will continue to see more illegal immigration.

Then maybe it's time they do like the maquilas and move their operations south. If they cannot bring themselves to pay American wages, and advertise for American workers, then move south.

It is silly to "save" these businesses from foreign countries if all they do is hire foreigners. Then the foreigners can't live on the $3 an hour and need food stamps and free health care and housing and it costs over $12,000 per year per child in the schools here.

Labor is much cheaper in Mexico because the cost of living there is much much cheaper too - so these are the businesses that should be headed there.

Still -- fewer than 1 million people work in agriculture and not all of them are illegal, around 25% may be illegal. Agricultural worker visas are not limited, there is really no excuse to bring in illegals.

[malamute]

Originally Posted by zacatecana

It's the first time I hear of someone getting paid by the day. Here in California, you get paid by the box, the bucket, the load, etc or the hour. For example, in Napa, grape pickers get paid by the truck load. Then they distribute the total among all workers. If they work individually, I have seen some grape pickers get paid up to $21.00 an hour. Many are not even legal but there is no competition. American citizens will not take those jobs either. Those picking raspberries are paid by the bucket. Each can is about the size of a large can of coffee. I dont know how much they pay now but I used to get paid $3.00 per can. Getting paid by the day is not the norm. At least not here in California.

Ranch work and stable work is different than fruit picking work. Fruit pickers are usually paid by the bucket -- similar to waiters getting more money if they take more tables or sales people getting more commissions - otherwise people may not pick fast at all.

I know people baling hay around here are usually paid by the day or by the job or by the hour, and many are not illegal at all. There's an "interesting" practice often done, someone will hire a legal citizen for some job and pay $20 or more an hour and he turns the job over to an illegal and pays him $5 -- keeping the extra $15. All you need is a few of these slaves doing your work for you and you can make quite a killing.

[Jayarcy]

<<The Pueblo Country farmers, Joe Pisciotta and Phil Prutch, said immigrant workers are afraid to come to Colorado because of its tougher immigrant laws passed last summer.>>

That would be ILLEGAL immigrant wokers, and ILLEGAL immigrant laws.

<<Among other things, the laws require people receiving state and federal benefits to prove they are legal U.S. residents.>>

These farmers want to pay the bare minimum they can get away with, and let state and federal benefits pick op the slack.

Even raising the pay to $9.60 per hour isn't much when you figure in rent, utilities, and groceriries, along with other incidentals.

Letting prisoners do the work is a good idea. It would have to be on a volunteer basis, but many of them would welcome getting out of their cells, and earning a little money.

[Jayarcy]

<<I doubt many ex-felons will be taking those jobs. It will not be a win-win for anyone.>>

It would be good for those who want to work, and get their lives straightened out, but for those who want the fast buck with no work, $100.00 an hour isn't going to impress them when they can make 5 or 6 times that amount, or more, robbing people, or selling drugs. That's why most of them are ex-felons. They didn't want to work for what they got.

[BentBow]

Originally Posted by malamute

There's an "interesting" practice often done, someone will hire a legal citizen for some job and pay $20 or more an hour and he turns the job over to an illegal and pays him $5 -- keeping the extra $15. All you need is a few of these slaves doing your work for you and you can make quite a killing.

That is what is happening in all construction trades.

Correct ranch work is 24-7, unlike fruit picking. I should not have put them together. That was misleading, on my part.
Working the ranch isn't just feeding the cows. Your a mechanic, fabricator, plumber, electrician, builder, fence guy, hay baler..... Ranch work is day pay in Texas. Ranch automation, has displaced those, to the jobs they did on the ranch, out into the public.

[Houston3]

Originally Posted by zacatecana

It's the first time I hear of someone getting paid by the day. Here in California, you get paid by the box, the bucket, the load, etc or the hour. For example, in Napa, grape pickers get paid by the truck load. Then they distribute the total among all workers. If they work individually, I have seen some grape pickers get paid up to $21.00 an hour. Many are not even legal but there is no competition. American citizens will not take those jobs either. Those picking raspberries are paid by the bucket. Each can is about the size of a large can of coffee. I dont know how much they pay now but I used to get paid $3.00 per can. Getting paid by the day is not the norm. At least not here in California.

Are they paying all of their taxes on that $21.00 an hour?

[BentBow]

Originally Posted by Houston3

Are they paying all of their taxes on that $21.00 an hour?

If your getting paid "piece work" your classified as a independent contractor, no taxes withheld, no worker compensation, no unemployment tax paid, no social security paid.

That's how they roll in construction. It is all paid as contract and subcontract labor.

[Bluesbabe]

For some reason I couldn't open that link. So I'll probably write things that are answered in that article.

Anyways. . . .

"Who" will WATCH the inmates??? I damn sure wouldn't want people in my fields that I can't trust. And I wouldn't confident enough with just one handgun in my pocket against a group of them.

I agree with Latin King to an extent. European countries take in tourists to help on their farms in exchange for room 'n' board (I know someone who did this in Italy and Germany).

Bentbow has a point, too. Farmers, along with construction, landscaping, and even restaurants, have "trained" the less-skilled Americans to not want those jobs because they've become so low-paying. AND a stigma. Frankly, I don't know what low-skilled Americans do for work anymore.

[Latin King]

Originally Posted by malamute

Then maybe it's time they do like the maquilas and move their operations south. If they cannot bring themselves to pay American wages, and advertise for American workers, then move south.

It is silly to "save" these businesses from foreign countries if all they do is hire foreigners. Then the foreigners can't live on the $3 an hour and need food stamps and free health care and housing and it costs over $12,000 per year per child in the schools here.

Labor is much cheaper in Mexico because the cost of living there is much much cheaper too - so these are the businesses that should be headed there.

Still -- fewer than 1 million people work in agriculture and not all of them are illegal, around 25% may be illegal. Agricultural worker visas are not limited, there is really no excuse to bring in illegals.

This is not sound advice, our manufacturing facilities have been systematically dismantled and shipped abroad, we have to cling to what we have and be as competitive as possible, if the migrant workers are the only able efficient workers available, so be it, but we need to preserve
what we have left, an economy based on fast foods will not make it....