How Should Agriculture Deal With Immigration?

[JimMeade]

Some ag employers, such as farmers in California, meat packers in Colorado, dairies around the country rely on low cost immigrant labor.  Often, it has been illegal labor.

What should they do if they can't get  inexpensive labor?  Should they raise wages, even if that means their product price is no longer competitive to foreing products?  

Can they even get labor by raising wages, or will it not be possible to get workers on the kill floor or the garlic field no matter the money?

[sw363535]

Great question and I have tried to introduce it before.... 

It is much more complicated than your statement .

The first line is descriptive of the 1950-60's  It is a much more extensive issue now....... It is hard to list all the jobs and industries where international labor is used in the US.  

But the two examples listed are just two of many in agriculture.  

It is hard to get discussion on it...   It is kind of like discussions on drug use in the US...

Every community and area of the country is involved in the subject... using either legal non US labor or illegal non US labor...

I remember reading an article about how much central america was affected by loss of construction job income when the US housing boom was over.  Several years ago.

[BA Deere]

These illegals that work cheaply in hog disassembly plants aren`t really "cheap labor".  They work in the cold and doing repetitive work, after 20 years they end up crippled with arthritis, I doubt that the packing plant will foot the bill for their care and nuring home expense, it`ll be on the backs of taxpayers.  Yeah it`s "cheap labor" now and the packing plants are laughing all the way to the bank, but it`s a timebomb of healthcare expense one day.

There`s a little button located between everyone`s spine and bellybutton, when that button gets too close to the spine that makes them hungry and they start looking for a job that they previously turned their nose up at that they called  "jobs that Americans won`t do".  Maybe packers have to be a little less greedy and pay a living wage and we need to exercise a little "tough love" and cut off some of this welfare and entitlements.   Right now there`s no incentive for the Americans, the packing plant or the illegals to do the right thing, everyone of them are subsidized by the taxpayers to do the WRONG thing. 

[k-289]

B A  -  BullsEye  on  this  topic   -  another  fruits  of  consolidation -  ask the folks at the retail meat counter about ''' cheap '''  meat today ?

[clayton58]

Ive heard "help wanted" ads from a couple local packing plants at times.  Wages, and bennies sounded like a pretty good package to me.

[BA Deere]

To me alot of these wages sound good too, but I have to remember that I`m a farmer and insulated and not putting my labor into "dollars per hour" and of course I`m not buying a home or paying a house mortgage.  One thing that should be looked into is this ridiculous notion that "everyone is college material"...because they aren`t.  Some have to come to terms that if they are going to make a living they are going to have to take the "Mike Rowe jobs".  Too many wannabe chiefs and not enough indians. 

All this welfare available is a disincentive to do physical work, if they can sit in mom`s basement with the X-Box and marijuana cigarettes, collecting $38,000 in bennefits, that to them is a better gig than boning hams.

http://nypost.com/2013/08/19/when-welfare-pays-better-than-work/  

The federal government funds 126 separate programs targeted towards low-income people, 72 of which provide either cash or in-kind benefits to individuals. (The rest fund community-wide programs for low-income neighborhoods, with no direct benefits to individuals.) State and local governments operate more welfare programs.Of course, no individual or family gets benefits from all 72 programs, but many do get aid from a number of them at any point in time.

Today, the Cato institute is releasing a new study looking at the state-by-state value of welfare for a mother with two children. In the Empire State, a family receiving Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, Medicaid, food stamps, WIC, public housing, utility assistance and free commodities (like milk and cheese) would have a package of benefits worth $38,004, the seventh-highest in the nation.

While that might not sound overly generous, remember that welfare benefits aren’t taxed, while wages are. So someone in New York would have to earn more than $21 per hour to be better off than they would be on welfare.That’s more than the average statewide entry-level salary for a teacher.   

If we really think that we are too good for alot of this Mike Rowe work, then we should at least be smart if we`re going to be lazy and issue "work cards" to immigrant workers, where they do their job and get paid and then go home so there aren`t any further obligations.

[elcheapo]

as for ba's broken down workers after 20 years, it's simple....you ship them back.

there are several things on all of this.....first, the wages/ money the workers get is low...in the fields

there has been data to show they don't even get minium wage....you will see margins pressed very

hard if they paid what they should, along with benefits and taxes.....

also, in some areas, there are no workers.  in the rural areas, fewer people, the birth rates down, and they

kids are getting the heck out of dodge due to good jobs.

the other thing is skill....there are skill levels that go along with if you look at the data, it is saying we are at or

near full employment...in one sense, we don't have workers....we need more workers....but then again,

there are those that may be no longer counted, but then again, how does that work.  do you want 50

somethings doing those jobs ???

these folks work hard, and have hard jobs.....the answer will to make it more for a machine to do it.

we have auto milkers, don't know about veg pickers, and i think somewhere i read about one that

can work at a processing plant.....that is how our new crop of workers will work....at the end of a joy

stick.

yes, we have a problem, but tweetybird thinks that everyone one of them is out to harm us.....

i think tho, many of them know which side of the bread is buttered.

too bad tweetybird doesn't

maybe he can ask his russian friends.

[BA Deere]

Hey K-289, I know these companies that hire illegals like things the way they are and to change and do the right thing is like OJ Simpson pretending that a blood shrunken glove won`t fit on his hand.   But we need Country Of Origin Labeling especially on meat, the US consumer would gladly pay 25¢ more for hamburger if they knew that the product was safe and the workers receive a living wage.   If they can`t afford that, there can be Australian kangaroo mystery meat available in the counter, but labeled as such.

[BA Deere]

Yeah but ElCheapo, these idiots that are protesting, dressed up like vaginas don`t want to "send them back" they want to fix them up with welfare and give them a Democrat voting card. 

Look at the Bakken oil deal out there in North Dakota, no one in their right mind would willingly move out there 😉   but freaking Walmart was paying 20 bucks a hour and the roughnecks were making enough in a couple months that they could vacation the rest of the year.  You pay people enough and they will even move to North Dakota   😉   Shoot they might even move to Kansas if you pay them enough   😉

[sw363535]

yes I hate to disagree with BA, but that statement about wages is also from the 1960's..... 

I have to look over this packing plant to look your way Clayton, and I know their wage and employee package and it is pretty decent.... Bottom Starting at $17 an hour with medical and a nice benefit package scaled up for time of service.  And the distribution jobs pay are the best rates in the area.  They underwrite educational opportunities for their employees as well.

The harvesting crews manned by foreign nationals are well paid at 15 an hour and up... Roofing crews don't work for cheap, most are contract crews who fly around the country to be where they are needed...  Irrigation construction crews need interpreters but are well paid.  

Not much concrete run in western kansas without foreign nationals on the crews, it's hard work and they make good money..

Maybe the maid services of non english speaking folks used in nearly every town in the midwest don't make much but I doubt it..... Most everybody who employ caring trusted workers have to pay well to keep them.

Folks doing the trades like flooring, roofing, masonery, painting. landscaping, etc etc etc.  demand good wages.

And the new and large numbers of advance degree foreign nationals who work in ag, medical, technology, biotech, teaching,  etc etc etc.......we have two of these with advanced degrees in agronomy.  ----- this is a bigger group than you'll expect... and are the reason that so many multinational corporations are siding on the "leave immigration alone" picket line.  As fast and big as international trade has grown, so has the mobility of business employees world wide.

We pay a harvest bonus for the crews that put in the long hours,,,, but my american employees talk about the money their going to get back from their tax return like it is Christmas...  The men get taxes back and they collect child care credits in cash, then their not bride or someone elses bride, live in girlfriends use the same kids to ramp up the single mother public assistance.  I got threatened with a lawyer this year by a former employees "wife" because the W-2 hadn't showed up in their mailbox by Feb. 3..... She needed to file that tax return....... NOW.   

hot headed substance abuse...  another of those issues we don't talk about much..