Thread: Help wanted - More businesses whining

NOTE: More businesses that won't operate legally

Help wanted
With Colorado farms short on migrant workers, local lawmakers start looking for solutions
by Anthony Lane
http://www.csindy.com/csindy/2007-08-23/news.html


Workers at Big Valley sometimes cut sod for 16-hour shifts on hot summer days.
Photo By Peter Fecteau

The sod-cutting crew at Big Valley Sod Farms in Ellicott can fill up to 10 semi trailers with rolled-up sod six or seven days a week. It's a backbreaking job, at times requiring 16-hour days to fill large orders.
Locals sometimes try their hand in the fields, says Denise King, the farm's office manager. But most quickly wither under the unyielding sun and seek work involving air conditioning and perhaps a comfy desk chair.

"I think we have a lazy American working society," King says.

Like many Colorado agricultural businesses, Big Valley relies on immigrant workers to get the job done. But a year after new state laws went into effect that deal harshly with illegal workers and employers who hire them, many farmers say migrant workers are skipping the state, whether they're legal or not.

"We have farmers who need workers, and they have none," says Rep. Marsha Looper, R-Calhan. "If we don't have any help in our fields, we're not going to have any agriculture."

Looper is looking for a way to set up a two-year pilot program that would simplify the process for Colorado farmers to get foreign workers. It could establish one or more offices south of the border to help channel workers to the farms where they're needed. While she's still working out details of the proposal, she says it would be similar to Canada's temporary worker program.

"At the end of the day, this is a workforce, labor issue," Looper says.

The reports of a worker shortage are tied to a wide-ranging package of immigration laws passed by state legislators in a special session last summer. One law requires companies to verify their workers are in the country legally, while another sets new identification rules designed to keep people who are in the country illegally from obtaining many government services.

For Big Valley, the laws meant a change, if not a worker shortage. The farm started the process last October of applying for workers through the federal H-2A program, King says. Though the farm got only six of the 10 workers it asked for, she says, the effort paid off and the summer has gone well.

Down in Rocky Ford, Michael Hirakata says Hirakata Farms has cut production on the 800-acre farm by about 30 percent and is making do with about half the workers it had last year. Instead of growing labor-intensive crops like cantaloupes and watermelons, the farm is shifting toward corn, wheat and alfalfa.

With produce, Hirakata says, it's "getting to the point where it's not worth doing anymore."

Hirakata also applied for H-2A workers, preferring the hours of paperwork and phone calls to the possibility of hiring a worker with fake documents. That kind of error could cost thousands in fines, even for a first infraction.

"They expect us to police the deal," Hirakata says. "We're not trained to do that."

State Sen. Abel Tapia, D-Pueblo, calls Looper's plan "terrific" but notes that it could be difficult to fund. An easier step, he says, would be finding a way to get applications for workers processed more quickly.

But getting anything done to ease the worker shortage during the coming election year could be a challenge, Tapia says, and that could be a problem for some farmers.

"We're going to have land that goes unproductive," he says.

— lane@csindy.com

"I think we have a lazy American working society," King says.

I'm speechless!

"I think we have a lazy American working society," King says.

Come up here to Pittsburgh and say that We have Americans working construction, roofing and other back breaking jobs. Unions still have a little clout. What you should say is that Americans aren't willing to do back breaking work for little to nothing in wages. Believe it or not, they are working class people who can't afford college and still work their butts off

"I think we have a lazy American working society," King says.

I think we have a profit driven employer class that doesn't want to pay a decent wage, king says


There fixed it for ya.

It's time to out sourse your farms to mexico...... Colorado is already loaded and I mean loaded with illegal immigrants .... Denver is Sancuary City USA

"I think we have a lazy American working society," King says.

Maybe more disillusioned work force! We have been screwed in every direction between our employers and the government jobs are drying up in America! We had factories, farms, construction jobs, and other serviceable jobs in America with Americans working! American companies are more worried about there profits blowing through the roof instead of caring for there workers.... So I can understand some Americans apathy to work!

One simple question begs asking:

Then why is isn't she out doing the hard labor which is so badly needed?

Also:

Hirakata also applied for H-2A workers, preferring the hours of paperwork and phone calls to the possibility of hiring a worker with fake documents. That kind of error could cost thousands in fines, even for a first infraction.

The H2A program has existed for years, allows in unlimited number of workers, and yet, strangely, a surprising relative few agricultural farms/companies use it....

This goes straight to the heart of illegality vs. legality. Those whining and pushing the 'but we've always had our cheap slave laborers and expect them now' thinking vs. hey, dummy, you could have done it legally all this time, and not found yourself in the current dilemma you've placed yourself into. The businesses that have opted for the 'oh well, don't worry about it' approach not only should not be able to continue the 'business as usual approach', but should also be penalized for breaking Federal labor laws. A relative benefit should be given to those firms which have taken the time and trouble to do things the right [legal] way.

Let me introduce these folks to a new word..."Mechanization" The agriculture business has been held back technologically because of the access to cheap labor. They are the ones responsible for their current delima!!! If they had of operated legally, they would have done like other manufacturing businessess and mechanized! Now time to wipe your little eyes, quit stomping your feet, pull out your pocket book, anti up, and grow up! (no pun intended on the "grow" part)

Has someone called with W-A-A-A-A-A-A-A-M-BULANCE for these growers?

Now time to wipe your littie eyes quit stomping your feet and grow up!

LOL

Nice that was funny avenger! Yes buy them damn machines and operate them! God you can probably get it subsided too!!! Some of you farmers got the life the average income on farmers is more then the average income to any working American! And I wonder why? Oh Americans don't get tax breaks that you guys get!