Thread: Picked By Legals

I was reading the local newspaper and they had an article about organic food. While reading the article I came up with the idea of picked by legal workers. I wonder if that would work. Even if I had to pay extra for it I would. People already pay a premium price for organic produce and other items. Or how about a store that sells American made items only. We need to show that Americans will not put up with illegals or items produced in China.

Your idea is excellent, but as for picking the crops with legal workers, there are legal workers out there, but I think you'd be hard-pressed to find alot of American citizens who would pick the crops on a consistent basis. Unless you had some sort of "field party" where you could convince the community to come out and do the picking, it would be hard to attract Americans to do that (at least in my experience...I could be wrong.)

You should ask yourself, would you and the people you hang around want to pick crops to support a grocery store, for example? The thing people forget sometimes is that "legal" workers just don't magically appear...legal workers are you and I. I've done restaurant work before and enjoyed that, and when I was around 20 I could've seen myself maybe helping out at a farm for a summer (would've been hard but would've gotten me in shape.) Today, at 35, I could still picture myself working at a restaurant part-time for extra money, but as far as picking crops...probably not.

Good post.

Ostrich

Funny thing is......that was one of the things that made Wal-mart such a success in the beginning. American Made. And then it changed.

I have picked strawberries in the past to amke extra money. It was hard work but the money wasn't bad. I recently read that farmers would pay up to $13 an hour to pick produce. It would not be a bad job for high school and college students but they don't advertisein the local English newspapers or in colleges and/or universities. How would people find out about those jobs as there is nothing out there to let people know. This is done for a reason and it is called cheap labor and no benefits.
As for Wal Mart I think they decided to compete with other stores by cutting prices and offering items made in China. This way they are still making a good profit and people think they are getting a bargain.

www.buydirectusa.com
www.howtobuyamerican.com

Farmers should try to recruit local college students. It is free to advertise to them. Perhaps we need to get the word out to them.

Originally Posted by jp_48504

www.buydirectusa.com
www.howtobuyamerican.com

Farmers should try to recruit local college students. It is free to advertise to them. Perhaps we need to get the word out to them.

That's the way it used to be, JP.
High school and college kids earning money for the next semester or car payment, etc., etc. THAT'S THE WAY IT WAS for American kids!!
Geez, even the kids don't want that backbreaking work for the peanuts some of these growers pay the Illegals.

A couple of weeks ago, I saw a young white guy hoeing weeds in a field by my house. Somebody was willing to pay enough to get him out there.

I think that there are American citizens willing to pick crops, but the numbers are so low that all of the advertising and increased pay in the world won't draw very many of them. I'm ignorant as to the current makeup of our legal agricultural workers, but I would bet that at least 50%or more of them are foreigners who are here on some type of work visa program. So, the number of American citizens doing this type of work is probably pretty small, as illegals do a huge amount of the total percentage of this work to begin with.

Agriculture and to a lesser extent our resorts (the ones that don't have a significant year-round population base and rely on outsiders to fill many of the jobs) are the areas that need some sort of reformed worker program. As for all other types of jobs (dishwashers, cooks, construction, maids, etc) I think that plenty of Americans will do these jobs, and additional workers from abroad aren't needed.

While it would help if more farmers mechanized, and this wouldn't happen overnight, we need a way to bring agricultural workers (and not their families) into the country for a period of several months, and then track them and make sure that they immediately return to their native countries when they are finished for the season. They should not be put on a path to citizenship or anything like that. With our technology, we should be able to track virtually everyone coming into our country. Remember, from all of the articles that I've read, "experts" keep saying that about 40% of our illegals are visa overstayers. If these people could be tracked and sent home properly, we wouldn't have as many problems as we do.

Ostrich