Thread: AL. Worker-Strapped Farm Groups Doubt Prisoner Remedy

Alabama Immigration Law: Worker-Strapped Farm Groups Doubt Prisoner Remedy

By Dan Rivoli | October 7, 2011 12:53 PM EDT

An Alabama immigration law may be leaving farmers without reliable migrant labor, but a state agriculture official said that prisons may be a quick fix.

John McMillan, Alabama Department of Agriculture and Industries commissioner, told the Montgomery Advertiser Thursday that inmates, through a work-release program, could be a labor source for farmers who are concerned that crops will rot in their fields now that Hispanic migrant workers are fleeing the state.

As a state with an economy based on agriculture, the exodus of skilled, Hispanic migrant workers has left Alabama crops unharvested, which has resulted in multi-million dollars losses.

"We are optimistic that by Monday we will have some help for farmers," said McMillan.

Alabama, along with Arizona and Georgia, recently passed an anti-immigration law that a federal judge in September left mostly intact, upholding the toughest provisions.

These provisions allow law enforcement officials to detain suspected illegal immigrants and school districts to check immigration status of children.

Immigration Law Hurt Farmers' Access to Labor

The provision that has hurt farmers' access to labor requires businesses to use the federal E-Verify system to check employees' status.

The Alabama Farmers Federation said the McMillan's efforts to bring inmate labor to farms as a short-term solution is appreciated.

"Relative to the federal side, our efforts continue in working with Congress to improve the current H2A and H2B guest worker programs to get farmers and business the legal labor they need," the organization said in a statement, referring to visa programs.

Using prisoners to pick up the slack is likely to fall short in addressing the labor issue, if Georgia--a state that also saw Hispanic agricultural workers flee over the anti-immigration law--is any guide.

This is the second attempt from Gov. Nathan Deal to get inmates into fields, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. An earlier program tried to get probationers to do farm work.

The plans for Alabama and Georgia are similar: use non-violent offenders to voluntarily sign up to work on farms picking fruits and vegetables. The pay would be set by farmers, according to reports.

More Than Unskilled Labor

Jon Huffmaster, the Georgia Farm Bureau's legislative director, wouldn't criticize any proposal that addresses the labor shortage, but doubted its effectiveness.

Farm labor requires more than muscle and a need for work, Huffmaster told IBTimes. The work is grueling and laborers are in outdoors with temperatures reaching nearly 100 degrees.

"A lot of people have an idea that work on farms is no-skill labor, that anybody who just walks up can do it. That's just not the case," Huffmaster said. "You have to be able to keep up to move from field to field... That's some of the things we ran into when it came to the probationers."

Using probationers failed to address the farmers' labor problem. Georgia's agriculture commissioner told a U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Tuesday that the program only produced a few reliable workers, and they weren't as productive as migrant workers, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution report.

There's also a pay problem that arises when using inmate labor, said Huffmaster. For farmers who pay a piecemeal rate-based on the amount harvested-inmates unaccustomed to farm work may be unable to make more than minimum wages.

"You have to be able to produce enough to get paid enough, or you're just going to get minimum wage and you're not getting a crop harvested," said Huffmaster.

The labor shortage has already caused an estimated $140 million in losses during Georgia's spring and summer harvest, according to an industry-funded study the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association released this week.

Crop Losses

The data collected for seven crops-blueberries, Vidalia onions and cucumbers, for instance-totaled $75 million in losses, but the loss figure reached the $140 million level to account for all growers of each commodity.

Further, many farmers responded that they'll cut their acreage or buy mechanical equipment to alleviate the problem. More than half of the vegetable growers who responded said their acreage will decrease.

McMillan, the elected Alabama agriculture commissioner and a Republican, is aware of the challenges Georgia's farmers faced when they used probationers. He stressed that a long-term solution for Alabama's farm labor shortage must be developed, according to the Montgomery Advertiser's Friday report.

"That is why I'm emÂ*phasizing that this is a short-term solution to get the curÂ*rent crops up," said McMillan. "Then, we'll look at the long term."

http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/227258/ ... nmates.htm

It takes some training and experience, you Dumb Whiney Farmers. You can't just march someone into a field and say "pick and prosper". They have to be shown the lay of the land, the tricks of the trade, some quality control requirements, and proven techniques on how to perform the work.

The farmers were breaking the law and profiting by using ILLEGAL labor while their neighbors pay the freight for their illegals.

They are not "too big to fail", they made their personal profits just as illegally as someone that robs banks and when people try to help them, their response seems to be "it's not good enough"


Let them pick their own tomatoes.

They tried using people on probation as farm workers.

Faced with the threat of farm loses in the $1 billion range, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal decided to replace Hispanic farm workers, who were leaving the state, with ex-inmates, who were required to work while on probation.

What sounded like a good idea to some proved to be a disaster.

The probationers could not keep up the Latino workers’ pace. Some sat down and quit, the Associated Press reported. Others “just left, took off across the field walking.â€

People that need jobs are picking tomatoes and they are accepting $2.00 a packed box to do it. Of course when legal citizens do it, the farmers can't just pay cash under the table all of the time.

Alabama immigration law: Farmers get new help for harvest (with slideshow)

The fill-in workers were brought to the farm near Steele by Grow Alabama, a Birmingham-based network that works with farmers from around the state to market locally-grown produce. Just a few days after launching the temporary assistance program, it's been overwhelmed, Grow Alabama head Jerry Spencer said Thursday.

Spencer is talking with the state agriculture department about finding funding for transportation. And Agriculture Commissioner John McMillan said Thursday that he's trying to make arrangements to use people from the Department of Corrections' work-release program as field hands, and to pull unemployed workers off the state rolls, as well. McMillan said the details weren't finalized, but there could be something up and running next week.

http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-252082-.html

Americans will work, especially now. The famers use to hire high school students to pick. I was one of them.

RELATED

Farmers say recession didn't bring Americans to farm work
May 10, 2010
www.alipac.us/ftopict-198518.html

The sooner these farmers wake up to the fact that we will no longer subsidize their "cheap" labor, the better they can move on. If they can't operate legally, then they can move their farms to mexico or shut down.

Either way, taxpayers win. Their "cheap" labor has cost us billions of dollars and their products are still expensive. No more pocketing inflated prices for farmers and no more sucking at the public teat for illegal aliens.

ENough is enough, this law WORKS!

Alabama Employer Bemoans Loss of Legal Workers Since Immigration Law Took Effect




They were hard-working, loyal employes.

They toiled for hours on end, on their feet, at the Wayne Farms chicken processing plant in Marshall County in Alabama. Then, just like that, they left – scores of them, accounting for a big chuck of the 120 jobs that suddenly were unfilled.

“We had 850 employes, 120 openings is inordinately high for us,â€

Wayne Farms!!.

[quote]They toiled for hours on end, on their feet, at the Wayne Farms chicken processing plant in Marshall County in Alabama. Then, just like that, they left – scores of them, accounting for a big chuck of the 120 jobs that suddenly were unfilled.

“We had 850 employes, 120 openings is inordinately high for us,â€