Thread: Farmers say recession didn't bring Americans to farm work

Farmers say even recession didn't bring Americans back to farm work, immigration reform needed

LISA RATHKE

Associated Press Writer
May 10, 2010 | 12:03 a.m.

MONTPELIER, Vt. (AP) — Even during the recession, foreign workers harvested vegetables, milked cows and picked apples on many U.S. farms, doing work that farmers say Americans don't want to do.

Most Americans shy away from jobs such as hand-picking tomatoes or cutting cabbage because the work is seasonal, physically tough, out in the elements and often in remote areas, farmers say. To get the jobs done, many farmers hire foreign workers, including some who are illegal, and they say a crackdown on illegal immigration combined with changes to a visa program for temporary workers could make it even harder for them to find reliable employees.

Farmers want Congress to pass an "AgJobs" bill that would enable those who have worked in U.S. agriculture for at least 150 days in the previous two years to get some kind of legal status. They also say the visa program for temporary workers needs to be simplified. Without those changes, some farmers say they may have to cut back production because of a shortage of reliable labor.

Jim Bittner, who relies largely on migrant workers originally from Mexico, said he cut down a quarter of his cherry and peach trees at Singer Farms in Appleton, N.Y., in recent years because of competition from cheap fruit imports and a lack of workers to hand-pick the fruit.

"We can find tractor drivers, people who apply pesticide and truck drivers, but we can't find people to do the harvest," Bittner said.

California's Imperial Valley used to be a big asparagus producer, but the area planted with asparagus dropped from 786 acres in 2006 to 373 acres in 2008 partly because farms couldn't get enough workers to cut, sort and pack the vegetable — all of which must be done by hand, said Ayron Moiola, the executive director of the Imperial Valley Vegetable Growers Association.

"Asparagus in the Imperial Valley is an indicator as to what happens with crops that are labor intensive and what happens when labor becomes unfeasible economically and also just hard to find," she said.

The recession stemmed a flow of workers from farms to construction and other jobs. In 2006, before the economy collapsed, Washington state and its apple growers tried to recruit pickers to fill 1,700 jobs. They set up orientation and training sessions in six towns in eastern Washington and advertised them in newspapers and on the radio, but only 40 people showed up, and just 10 applied for jobs and were hired.

Washington officials say they seem to have enough workers this year, but as the job market slowly recovers, no one expects farmers' hiring to get easier.

"Nobody who is informed on this issue seriously contends that somehow some great societal shift is going to cause a whole bunch of Americans to go back into these jobs," said Craig Regelbrugge, vice president for government relations with the American Nursery and Landscape Association and co-chair of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform.

More than half of the crop workers hired in the U.S. between 2005 and 2007 were in the country illegally, according to the federal government's National Agricultural Worker Survey.

Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for tougher immigration laws, thinks the problem is that farmers have become addicted to cheap, foreign labor and haven't been forced to raise wages to attract other workers or consider mechanization.

"No one has really thought about how to change the equation to try to break the cycle of what the growers say is need and what some economists say is really more want," she said.

Jake Guest employs about 20 local workers at his organic vegetable farm in Vermont, but he still relies on two Jamaican farmworkers to spend hours picking strawberries and weeding.

"The problem is that the kind of work that these guy do, people don't want to do it," he said.

But changes to the H2-A program have made it more complicated and costly to legally hire temporary workers, Guest said. The program can't be used to fill jobs that are considered year-round, such as milking on dairy farms.

In February, the U.S. Labor Department issued regulations to increase wages and job safety protections for temporary farm workers, reversing Bush-era changes that farm worker advocates said promoted cheap labor and undercut domestic hiring. The changes also require growers to do more to try to fill the jobs with American workers.

For Guest, it means he must advertise the jobs in Vermont, two neighboring states and either Florida or Texas, pay $1,000 for the Jamaicans' transportation to his Norwich farm, pay $120 in government fees for each and provide housing. The law requires Guest to pay the Jamaicans $10 an hour, and he can't pay domestic workers doing the same job less.

It's worth it to have skilled workers, he said.

"If you've got a sink drain that doesn't work, you don't hire a college student to fix it," Guest said. "You don't hire a painter. If you've got strawberries to pick, you hire a professional picker."

http://www.latimes.com/business/nationw ... 7417.story

One of the things keeping American workers out of the agricultural workplace is pay. Another related issue is that our government often pays more and gives better benefits to the unemployed. What incentive is there in taking low paying seasonal work when it interferes with unemployment compensation?

Also lack of reliable transportation. Many of the workers they usually use get furnished by brokers. Those workers don't just mosey up to the farmer's door. Many of the Americans don't know exactly where the jobs even are, just that they are out in the country somewhere. They don't have the help hooking up with a gig that the brokers of farm workers provide.

Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies at the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates for tougher immigration laws, thinks the problem is that farmers have become addicted to cheap, foreign labor and haven't been forced to raise wages to attract other workers or consider mechanization.

These poor farmers! They are the ones that hire the migrant workers which often are foreign workers and often illegal aliens. They hire because they are a cheap labor force and they do not provide health care for them or some proper housing in many cases.

Which eventually is left up to the taxpayers to cover. How many of these farmers also collect some type of subsidy from the Federal Government?

Aaawww, shut up, farmers. If you can't figure out how to structure your wages, benefits, travel expenses and housing accommodations to hire Americans to pick your crops, then get out of the business and out of the way so someone else can.

Do you creeps really really expect us to believe that when Americans do all types of lousy, repetitive, dirty, hot, dangerous, back-breaking work all over this country that you can't find some Americans willing to pick strawberries or apples for $10 an hour with a $1,000 travel allowance and housing provided?

What is wrong with you farmers? You could line 'em up all the way to New York City or Missouri for that. Lets see, cut chicken in the Midwest for $9 an hour with no transportation or housing expenses, or pick strawberries and applies in Vermont for $10 an hour with a $1,000 travel expense and housing provided?

Duh. Who do you think you're fooling? Let me tell you something ... you aren't fooling anyone any more. The only time you can fool an American is when we aren't paying attention. Well, we're paying attention now.

The gig is up and the party is over. You're going to hire Americans and pay them whatever they demand to pick your berries, vegetables and applies and milk your cows or feed your bulls and scrub your barns and do whatever else you need done. And if that means paying them $10 an hour or $11 an hour or $12 an hour, then that IS what you're going to have to pay and that IS what the American consumer is going to absorb in their prices for your products.

Can't pay that and compete with foreign imports? Really? Then get off your butts and demand protected trade. Can't pay that wage and pay social security taxes and federal income tax on your profits? Really? Then get off your whiny butts and demand the FairTax.

www.fairtax.org

Your industry is the most coddled, looked after, subsidized, pandered industry in the United States. The American People have held your hands and lined your wallets for over 100 years. And this is how you repay them? With insults? With stupidity? With ingratitude? With degrading implications that Americans are "lazy", too "selective", not "willing to do the jobs"? BS! BS! BS!

Stop making dishonest disingenuous excuses to violate our sovereignty, disrespect our citizens and spit on our rule of law.

How. Dare. You.

Farmers: Immigration Reform Needed for Ag Workers

Monday, 10 May 2010 09:12 AM

Many farmers say that without immigration reform, they'll be facing a labor shortage.

Farmers say most Americans shy away from jobs such as cutting cabbage because the work is seasonal, physically tough, out in the elements and often in remote areas.

They want the federal government to make it easier for them to get qualified, legal foreign workers. That includes passing an "AgJobs" bill enabling farm workers to get some kind of legal status and simplifying a visa program for temporary workers.

The Center for Immigration Studies, which advocates tougher immigration laws, thinks the problem is farmers are addicted to cheap, foreign labor and haven't been forced to raise wages.

http://www.newsmax.com/US/US-Food-and-F ... 0/id/35850

Source: The Associated Press

Opinion -
We need to revise our H-1B Temporary Workers in Agriculture Visas program along the lines of Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP), whereby the Canadian govenment contracts directly with other governments (primarily that of Mexico), which themselves select the individual workers who are to work seasonally in Canadian agriculture each year. These workers are transported directly to Canada by the Canadian government (Air Canada); their rights are guaranteed by the Canadian govenement--which also insures that their just wages are paid--while they are the country; and then they are transported directly back to their home countries after their work is finished. Canada evidently has used this program successfully for several decades, and both Canadian planter/growers and the participating workers themselves are very satisfied with it.

There are many areas of U.S. agriculture which do need a large and reliable workforce at very specific times, and there is no reason why we as a nation cannot stop arguing over unnecessary issues like "legalization" and reform our H-1B Visas Program to provide a good supply of willing legal foreign workers who are well-treated each year and who also are transported home safely when their work in the United States is done. These workers so not compete with Americans for the most part, and this will also prevent 1) U.S. farmers from simply moving their production sites to Mexico and Central America, as many evidently would like to do; and/or 2) smaller U.S. farms simply going under financially.

One of our strengths as a nation always has been our magnificent agriculture sector and our self-sufficiency in food: U.S. farmers and farm products are of exceptional quality to be valued, supported, and assisted in obtaining a reliable legal seasonal workforce which itself is respected, decently housed, and payment of their wages guaranteed for their labor in our country.

Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Worker's Program (SAWP):
http://www.rhdcc-hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/workpl ... _tfw.shtml

It's time for a FOOD BOYCOTT to teach these traitors a lesson. Then we'll cut their subsidies and pass the FairTax.

Holy Moly, these helpless frauds and liars make me want to puke. Just think about this, when farmers lie about the American People and the American Worker to hire illegal aliens and line their pockets, just what else are they lying about with regards to our food supply to line their pockets?

Wake Up Farmers. This BS is going to Boomerang on you and hit you in your heads like a lead balloon.

We need to revise our H-1B Temporary Workers in Agriculture Visas program along the lines of Canada's Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program (SAWP), whereby the Canadian govenment contracts directly with other governments (primarily that of Mexico), which themselves select the individual workers which will work seasonally in Canadian agriculture each year. These workers are transported directly to Canada by the Canadian government (Air Canada); their rights are guaranteed by the Canadian govenement--which also insures that their just wages are paid--while they are the country; and then they are transported directly back to their home countries after their work is finished. Canada evidently has used this program successfully for several decades, and both Canadian planter/growers and the participating workers themselves are very satisfied with it.

There are many areas of U.S. agriculture which do need a large and reliable workforce at very specific times, and there is no reason why we as a nation cannot stop arguing over unnecessary issues like "legalization" and reform our H-1B Visas Program to provide a good supply of foreign workers who are well-treated each year and who also are transported home safely when their work in the United States is done.

Excellent info T2S! Are there any confirming links to it?

Ratbstard wrote:
"Excellent info T2S! Are there any confirming links to it?"

Thank you, Rb; yes:
http://www.rhdcc-hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/workpl ... _tfw.shtml

and I added it to my post above.

Originally Posted by Texas2step

Ratbstard wrote:
"Excellent info T2S! Are there any confirming links to it?"

Thank you, Rb; yes:
http://www.rhdcc-hrsdc.gc.ca/eng/workpl ... _tfw.shtml

and I added it to my post above.

That's great! I'd even suggest making it a sticky so that whenever anyone suggests how we need the IAs to do seasonal farm work we could just point directly to this.