Dumb Alabama Immigration Law Working So Well Its Crops Are Rotting

[warrior1]

http://wonkette.com/454271/dumb-alabama-immigration-law-working-so-well-its-crops-are-rotting#more-454271

The AP has the details of the Tomato Bucket Incident:

Tomato farmer Brian Cash said the migrant workers who would normally be on Chandler Mountain have gone to other states with less restrictive laws.

After talking with famers at the tomato shed, Beason visited the Smith family’s farm. Leroy Smith, Chad Smith’s father, challenged the senator to pick a bucket full of tomatoes and experience the labor-intensive work.

Beason declined but promised to see what could be done to help farmers while still trying to keep illegal immigrants out of Alabama.

Smith threw down the bucket he offered Beason and said, “There, I figured it would be like that.”

[Vincardog]

1. WE drive them off their land with our subsidized grain and then deny them the jobs we won't do

Ignorant bigots.

[Fresh_Start]

2. The other problem with working on a farm

Its seasonal work...yes there are some activities year round but farming needs a huge increase in workers at harvest and by some amazing coincidence a lot of farms need a huge increase at the same time since nature tends to reach maturity on crops at similar times in the same geography.

So its not just back breaking work and low paid...its also a question about what do you do to earn a living the other 11 months of the year.

[Shagbark Hickory]

14. Blah blah blah. So is crab fishing. $100k plus jobs doing that. n/t

[dickthegrouch]

3. If I were that farmer....

I'd hire people at the market wage (i.e. whatever the unemployed locals will accept) and price my tomatoes appropriately on the Alabama Capitol steps and challenge every lawmaker to purchase them. I'd also have a chart showing expenses and expected profits.

The TV news footage of lawmakers declining the high price would speak volumes.

While it would show that the undocumented workers were earning less than is livable for the locals, it would also highlight the realities of how the economy really works, which apparently these lawmakers are completely ignorant of.

[xchrom]

4. interesting. nt

[DirkGently]

5. One small benefit to the outrageous RW laws stemming from 2010: Seeing how they work.

It's easy to scream that your crazy ideology would fix everything, as long as no one ever actually tries it.

We depend on illegal immigrant labor. It's a net benefit to the economy. We take advantage of them, not vice versa.

That exploitation isn't a good thing. But people enraged about "illegals" are lying to themselves when they imagine America would do better without its endless stream of blackmarket, low-wage workers. The only way we can do better is to treat people coming here to work like the human beings they are. Locking them up or running them off is biting the nose to spite the proverbial face.

[Atypical Liberal]

6. Mixed feelings on this.

On one hand, I think that people who bust ass to come here to bust ass ought to be let in.

On the other hand, I think Mr. Tomato farmer ought to raise his wages to the point where he can get regular Americans to do the job, and let everyone pay the new fair market value for tomatoes.

[Shagbark Hickory]

15. Regardless of immigration status, paying slave wages and having terrible working conditions is

unacceptable.

[Dreamer Tatum]

7. Millions of unemployed Americans should be ready to pick vegetables.

Where are they?

[zalinda]

8. Quite probably, trying to survive in the city

Just because there is a job available doesn't mean that those who need jobs can get there. Migrant workers know what they are getting into, and live their lives accordingly. They pack as many as possible in a vehicle to get to the farm, they usually have tents if they know that the farmer does not provide lodging. They also know how to harvest the many crops that need hand picking. Get some city people out there and you have to train them. Remember, many of them may never have seen a tomato plant, or grape vine or even an apple tree.

That being said, not all migrant workers are illegals, there are still some poor Americans who also do the work, but in most cases, they take the best jobs and have been trying hard to keep their children out of the migrant cycle.

zalinda

[Liberal_in_LA]

10. yep. picking vegetables requires traveling from farm to farm - Most Americans aren't

able to live that lifestyle.

[Shagbark Hickory]

16. There's fisherman that travel from across the globe for seasonal jobs.

There's no job people won't do or distance people won't travel.
It's just wages that people won't work for.

[Fresh_Start]

9. how many of them live in the area surrounding the crops?

surely you don't think that it makes sense for someone to move 1000 miles to pick crops for three weeks a year?

[Shagbark Hickory]

17. If the job pays accordingly.

Crab fisherman travel from across the country for a short seasonal job and work in very dangerous, unpleasant (to say the least) conditions but they get paid a fair amount for what the job entails.

[mainer]

11. $10.50 an hour in Colorado; laborers walk out after 6 hours

Local workers in Colorado find farm work too hard and walk off the job after only 6 hours.

Apparently Americans don't want to work on farms.

http://reason.com/blog/2011/10/05/colorado-farmers-hire-locals-f

[Shagbark Hickory]

19. Try $30 an hour then. $10 is not a living wage.

There's no job that people won't do, only wages people won't work for.

People are lined up to do the deadliest job in the world, alaskan crab fishing. They get paid a fair amount. That is the difference.

[Dreamer Tatum]

22. Are you ready to pay snow crab rates for vegetables? Didn't think so. nt

[Shagbark Hickory]

23. It doesn't cost as much to pick vegetables as it does to spend weeks in a boat in the ocean.

Vegetables won't cost as much as snow crabs if that's what you're getting at.
But I would be willing to pay more for them if we could finally put this neoslavery issue to rest once and for all.

[mainer]

12. Farms may have to become "pick your own"

Let consumers pick cheaply for their own use, and maybe the crops will be taken care of.

[Gin]

13. so....this farmer hired illegals....why isn't he in jail? or fined? or both

I cannot find american/us grown tomatoes at my stores...either mexico or canada....so...we still grow tomatoes here...I am shocked.

[Shagbark Hickory]

20. I'd gladly do that. Or howsabout we just pay an extra half of one percent to pay the workers

a fair wage?

[Jim Warren]

18. The US Chamber of Commerce

does pretty good cherry picking and planting stories though, don't ya think?

[pampango]

21. Nice to see the Chamber bashing laws passed by republican state legislatures and

signed by republican governors. The big business and teabagger wings of the repub party are at each other's throats on this one.