06.06.11
Having trouble keeping ’em down on the farm
The combination of slave labor/pseudo-slave labor wages and Arizona-style anti-illegal laws have hit farmers in a number of states.
This story, from Georgia, claims there is a labor shortage of 50 percent during the growing season.
Fifth-generation Georgia farmer Gary Paulk told local paper The Daily Journal that he has only been able to find half of the 300 workers he needs to pick his blueberry fields, and that’s after hiking wages 20 percent. Another farmer said he had to switch to (less efficient) machines when he couldn’t find enough workers for his fields this spring …
Anti-illegal immigration groups like FAIR argue that if illegal immigration goes down, wages would go up for farm jobs, and then native-born Americans and legal immigrants would want them. Farmers say they can’t afford to pay more.
The agricultural work done by many illegals in California is back-breaking. The living conditions are very harsh, you get sprayed with pesticides, and there is substantial risk for dehydration and heat stroke and/or heat exhaustion.
When farmers raise wages to levels commensurate with the risk, in a harsh economy, US workers may begin to take the jobs.
Farmers may be compelled to make the work less hazardous to the health to see that. But maybe they won’t.
In any case, it’s hard to be sympathetic.
If the US government hadn’t made a policy of blindly accepting slave labor conditions and wages in farming for decades, we might not be where we are now.
Steve Colbert, who couldn’t do the work but made a big issue of signing up for it for the sake of entertainment value last year turned the issue into unfunny joke material before Congress.
Wage compression and economic failure in the US middle class has made it necessary for food to remain cheap. In response, the food stamp program has exploded.
When food isn’t affordable, riots ensue. (See Egypt.)
So we’re in a downward spiral.
Farmers won’t pay more. Their labor face is impacted. Their bottom line shrinks.
It’s a tough problem. I suspect the system has to almost break down completely before it can be repaired.