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You missed the most important part of the story. . .
"During summer, when the harvest of fruits and vegetables is in full swing in California's Central Valley, temperatures hover in the triple digits. Heat exhaustion is one of the reasons farm labor consistently makes the Bureau of Labor Statistics' top ten list of the nation's most dangerous jobs.
Second, expect long days. Growers have a small window to pick fruit before it is overripe.
And don't count on a big paycheck. Farm workers are excluded from federal overtime provisions, and small farms don't even have to pay the minimum wage. Fifteen states don't require farm labor to be covered by workers compensation laws."
It's despicable that in a country like ours, we allow any employer to treat its employees like slaves. It's not the immigrants driving down the wages, it's the farm industry that is allowed to get away with paying sub-standard-of-living wages, and takes every advantage of it by hiring the only people who will suck it up under those conditions.
Americans don't mind sweating, but we sure as hell mind having to work overtime without pay, in conditions that can kill you, without workers compensation benefits if something does happen to us.
Exactly. The same exact arguments can and were used to justify slavery.
One thing though - not many places in California have triple digit heat. Most fruits don't grow where it's always 100 plus.
But - just as we all knew, this is all only about getting the elites their cheapest possible labor. With illegals they aren't expected to provide health insurance, workman's comp, overtime pay, or legal wages. There are big profits for the haughty elite by bringing back slavery and slave wages.
It's amazing that people are trying so blatantly to push their pro-illegal agenda with their pro-slavery arguments.
Bull. Most farmer groups are begging to implement an agricutural worker program where workers can get the credentials required to come and work seasonally. Like the bracero program. Raise the wges significantly higher, does not really make a difference, California or otherwise. Amercians just do not want to deal with picking crops.
Lake County growers said that pickers’ pay was not low — up to $150 a day — and that they had been ready to pay even more to save their crops. “I would have raised my wages,” said Steve Winant, a pear grower whose 14-acre orchard is still laden with overripe fruit. “But there weren’t any people to pay.”
Location: Jonquil City (aka Smyrna) Georgia- by Atlanta
16,259 posts, read 24,792,165 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by malamute
You are a very anti-American racist.
Who is over in Iraq sweating in miserable conditions there? Yet you claim that Americans are too lazy and prissy to do any kind of work?
Illegals are filling jobs because you elitists believe you must have nothing but the lowest paid stoop labor and servant class to wait on you hand and foot - yet you put down hard working Americans who don't require cheap servants?
You and every other American use the cheap servants. Who do you think picked your fruit and built your house? If you want to pay $5 for a head of lettuce or $20 more a night for a hotel room, you can have Americans do that work- maybe. We are lucky we have the Mexicans to risk their very lives to sneak in here and do work we don't want to do.
I grew up in Southwestern MI, and saw a lot of migrant farm workers. I spent my twenties and some of my thirties in the Southwest, and saw the plight of the manual laborers from Mexico.
I also saw how the union laborers in Michigan lost jobs because they grew fat and lazy on their union protections.
Now, I believe in a world without political boundaries, where people live and work based on their own efforts, and the efforts of their combined resources, without restrictions based on religion, race, or ethnicity.
I know its a stretch, but faith is about overcoming stretches.
Immigrant farm workers' challenge: Take our jobs - Yahoo! News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100624/ap_on_en_tv/us_immigration_take_our_jobs - broken link)
Is this the old shtick, that "illegal aliens do the jobs that Americans won't do"?
I have seen some of the episodes from the Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs, and I have yet to see Mike Rowe doing a job that illegal aliens were doing. Every show, Mike speaks with the folks who are normally doing the job he is doing, and never have they been some obvious foreigner speaking in halting English.
Yup. A Mexican will show up, even with the FLU, a broken leg, hemroids,scabies,hives,conjunctivitis,pleurisy, yadda yadda yadda
Cooler of ice water ? nah ! a tablespoon will suffice.
And why will they show up and we won't?
Because they and their families will STARVE if they don't.
My son and grandson just got back from a very poor part of Mexico.
My son wanted to show my grandson how the real poor people live.
Their houses don't have roofs but tarps and the walls are just thin boards with cracks. They have no air conditioning so they are use to heat but they have no money for clothes either. They rely on clothes that are sent to them from churches and missions. It seems they do what they do for food and we would too if our children were hungry.
I have seen some of the episodes from the Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs, and I have yet to see Mike Rowe doing a job that illegal aliens were doing. Every show, Mike speaks with the folks who are normally doing the job he is doing, and never have they been some obvious foreigner speaking in halting English.
Never seen the show, but I am guessing Mike has never done an episode on picking crops.
I have yet to read or see anywhere an American protesting that he wants to go pickin but he can't because of those pesky illegals.
That is because there are no such Americans out there.
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