Where are all the illegal farmworkers?

[primroselane]

SALEM - Tighter controls of border crossings between the U.S. and Mexico have led to a shortage of strawberry pickers in Oregon, leaving some prized berries to rot on the vines during prime picking weeks.
Earlier this week, an emergency plea for strawberry pickers was issued by the state Employment Department.


http://www.registerguard.com/news/20...mmig.0618.html

I have seen figures that we have around ten million illegal aliens in the country now. Is the point of the story that we need to make illegal immigration easier so that we can have cheap food. Do the illegal aliens here now have easier, higher paying jobs?

I guess Oregon doesn't have very many unemployed people. And evidently high school and college kids don't need any money.

[Sandhills]

When I was a kid I would spend my summers in Oregon at my grandparents house and all of the neighborhood kids would pick strawberries. They would come around in an old schoolbus to pick us up in the morning and then bring us home in early afternoon. There were almost no other adults except for the farm people who supervised us. I had heard that it is all migrant farm laborers who do the work now. Most of us kids who worked in the fields were there to earn money for school supplies and clothes. I think it helped to make us more responsible adults. I think it would be great if they went back to using a younger labor force.

[Mommalee]

Oregon is full of unemployed people! That's why we left!!!! And growing up there, picking strawberries and blueberries in the summer was pretty standard for most kids. Dunno what this is about.

[FLhomesteader]

I was watching PBS i think and they were doing a show about mexican migrant workers that pre 9/11 and before boarder tighting that the worker would cross over the boarder to work during seasons and go back to mexico during off season, as they knew they would beable to get back over the boarder again the next time. but now those who do cross are froced to stay and not as many are willing to take the chance and leave their families and homes so they go work in factroies to make American goods. this is just what I remember as this was a while ago I have seen it here in florida this past feb when it was are time to pick the berries

[CraftyDiva]

I love the logic of spending billions on welfare for the illegals to save a few cents on a pint of strawberries.

[boxwoods]

CraftyDiva - That's called farm subsidies

[texastami]

We lived in oregon for 20 years - both my parents were unemployed when we moved there and we survived picking berries for that first summer....

Move ahead 20 years, DH got laid off and we tried making some money doing this to survive and couldn't find ANYWHERE to hire us as they all had illegals doing their work for them!! (And they were paid quite well!!)

In researching a few areas, I discovered that there are a few berry places that WONT hire illegals and give the jobs to locals, but those are few and far inbetween!!! Its a shame too because teenagers today need to experience that "hard work!!"

And the UNEMPLOYMENT rate is lousy in oregon, I agree!! That is precisely why we left 4 years ago!! To never return!!!

[MorrisonCorner]

In VT they tried to hire locals to pick the apple crop (we usually import Jamacians, some of whom have come for so many years they're like part of the "family." They play cricket, so the Brits in my town drive 2 hours to the apple orchards to get up a game with the pickers).

Locals, apple crop, I digress: they locals couldn't do the work. It takes technique and stamina to pick effectively and the farm has to pay minimum wage. So if you can't pick unbruised fruit fast enough the farm loses money (lots of money) and can't hire locals. I've picked apples... if you don't have the hand and wrist strength (to say nothing of a strong back and good balance) it is carpel tunnel in an afternoon.

There's a lot of things I can do, but picking fruit at speed for a living isn't one of them.

[primroselane]

Should we be concerned that our populace does not have the stamina and dexteritiy to pick fruit?

[MorrisonCorner]

Why? Unless you're equally concerned that other nations don't have the resources, capital, and intellectual power to build space shuttles. Since man crawled out of the sludge and stood upright we've been looking for ways to make work easier...

Worry instead that we haven't figured out how to harvest apples with anything better than brute strength. Surely, if we can put a man on the moon, we can figure out how to harvest apples without making people sweat in the sun!

[cloverfarm]

When I worked at The Farmer's Exchange, Michiana's Popular Farm Newspaper, I interviewed farmers who raised gladiolas and needed a lot of help packing the bulbs. They hired Hispanic immigrants (I don't know if they were legal or illegal or here to stay or what) because ... the locals dind't want to work that hard. Or would show up late, or hung over, or wouldn't show up at all.

Ann

[oz in SC]

Perhaps this work is beneath the illegals now?

We are in tomato season right now(so lovely to see the BRIGHT GREEN tomatoes being picked,no ripe ones they are thrown on the ground) and there are a LOT of pickers here...mostly short hispaninc looking folks.

Of course the ones that live here year round no longer do such work,instead they are working construction,painting houses,etc...

Jobs formerly done by others...I wonder what happened to those from here who used to pain houses and be the laborers???

Guess they are unemployed now.

GREAT system...

[kesoaps]

It's illegal to hire children now, that's the problem! And teens don't want to be in the berry field, not when minimum wage at McDonalds is over $7 hr.

I'm glad the border is shutting down the migrant business. It's a reality check for the rest of America. How in the world can a business survive with the high wages they need to shell out for our spoiled brat society? They can't. But it's an issue many people would like to turn their backs on. We somehow think our million dollar homes just float down out of the sky, I guess, without giving any thought as to how the economy is breaking under the weight of it.

Am I making any sense? Sometimes I get so cranked up, I wonder...

[MarkNH]

Is it legal these days to hire someone by piecework? Why is everyone using the metric of hourly wages?
I suspect that the rate somebody is willing to work for would balance out with the rate that the business is willing and able to pay. Otherwise somebody's losing out. If it's illegal workers taking anything, will guess what you are hiring slave labor and that to me is immoral. Any business which needs this to survive has a flawed model or facing competition from other area's in which costs are so out of proportion that fair competition is NOT Possible. ( i.e. China and India come to mind for manufacturing and Hi Tech work)

My defintion of slave labor is any labor which has no other choice to take what is offered. It's a pretty broad definition in today's economy covering way too many folks.

<Rant On>
I agree, if you aren't legal why should you be given work that causes the pay scale for others to be dropped. You shouldn't be here in the first place. There are legal methods of coming into this country, for which I'm thankfull my parents chose.
<Rant Off>

I'm all for Legal immigration that places everyone within the economy on the same playing field.

[Wolf mom]

They're all here in Arizona with free medical insurance. That's why we don't have enough doctors for our population. Closed borders? What a crock! They dig tunnels under the border inside one house to another.

If illegal's used that kind of ingenuity to clean up their own country, they wouldn't have to come here.

:no: :no:

[southerngurl]

Surely, if we can put a man on the moon, we can figure out how to harvest apples without making people sweat in the sun!

*Gasp* Yes! Anything but ---physical labor! Sweat! EGADS!

Can't we find a more environmentally polluting method?!

[MorrisonCorner]

*laugh* Well.. if you're volunteering to come up and pick apples, have at it. But if you're not, don't be critical of the apple picking machine!

[rzrubek]

Originally Posted by Wolf mom

They're all here in Arizona with free medical insurance.

Yes, they are all right down the street from me!!!!!!!!!!

[Gary in ohio]

The thing that bothers me is Oregon KNEW there was an illegal act being commit but did nothing about it so farmers could save some money. Now there complaining about the fact there are not enough illegal people for the farmers to hire?

[DrippingSprings]

I once saw a show where they were harvesting some type of nut off of a tree. They had an attachment on a lil bobcat loader that would wrap around the trees and then shake the nuts off. Another one would in essence vacuum the nuts off the ground.