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View Full Version : Despite economy, Americans don't want farm work



MNeagle
27th September 2010, 10:51 AM
VISALIA, Calif. – As the economy tanked during the past two years, a debate has raged over whether immigrants are taking jobs that Americans want. Here, amid the sweltering vineyards of the largest farm state, the answer is no.

Most Americans simply don't apply for jobs harvesting fruits and vegetables in California, where one of every eight people is out of work, according to government data for a federal seasonal farmworker program analyzed by The Associated Press.

And the few unemployed Americans who apply through official channels usually don't stay on in the fields, a point comedian Stephen Colbert — dressed as a field hand — has alluded to in recent broadcasts on Comedy Central.

"It's just not something that most Americans are going to pack up their bags and move here to do," said farmer Steve Fortin, who pays $10.25 an hour to foreign workers to trim strawberry plants for six weeks each summer at his nursery near the Nevada border. He has spent $3,000 this year ensuring domestic workers have first dibs on his jobs in the sparsely populated stretch of the state, advertising in newspapers and on an electronic job registry.

But he hasn't had any takers, and only one farmer in the state hired anyone using a little-known, little-used program to hire foreign farmworkers the legal way — by applying for guest worker visas.

Since January, California farmers have posted ads for 1,160 farmworker positions open to U.S. citizens and legal residents seeking work.

Only 233 people applied after being linked with the jobs through unemployment offices in California, Texas, Nevada and Arizona. One grower brought on 36 U.S citizens or legal permanent residents. No one else hired any.

"It surprises me, too, but we do put the information out there for the public," said Lucy Ruelas, who manages the California Employment Development Department's agricultural services unit. "If an applicant sees the reality of the job, they might change their mind."

The California figures represent a small sample of efforts to recruit domestic workers under the H-2A Guest Worker Program, but they provide a snapshot of how hard it is to lure Americans to farm labor — and to get growers to use the program.

Fortin is one of just 23 of the estimated 40,900 full-time farmers and ranchers in California who petitioned this year to bring in foreign farmworkers through legal means, the government data showed. The Labor Department did not respond to a request for comment about the findings.

More than half of farmworkers in the United States are illegal immigrants, according to the Labor Department, and another fourth of them were born outside the country. Proponents of tougher immigration laws — as well as the United Farm Workers of America — say farmers are used to a cheap, largely undocumented work force, and say if growers raised wages and improved working conditions, the jobs would attract Americans.

So far, a tongue-in-cheek effort by Colbert and the UFW to get Americans to take farm jobs has been more effective in attracting applicants than the official channels.

The UFW in June launched the "Take Our Jobs Campaign," inviting people to go online and apply.

About 8,600 people filled out an application form, but only 7 have been placed in farm jobs, UFW President Arturo Rodriguez said.

Colbert joked to a House Congressional committee Friday that spending a day picking beans in upstate New York for an episode was "really, really hard."

Colbert's comedic activism makes a point Fortin is familiar with. Some Americans referred for jobs at his nursery couldn't to do the grueling work.

"A few years ago when domestic workers were referred here, we saw absentee problems, and we had people asking for time off after they had just started," he said. "Some were actually planting the plants upside down."

Economists have long argued over whether local workers would take jobs in the field if wages rose. Philip Martin, a professor of agricultural and resource economics at the University of California, Davis, said because so few farmers participate in the H-2A program, the data's limitations make it hard to draw national conclusions. Under current conditions, the figures show the work force will remain almost entirely immigrant, he said.

"Recruitment of U.S. workers in this program doesn't work well primarily because employers have already identified who they want to bring in from abroad," Martin said. "I don't think a lot of U.S. workers are going out there looking for a seasonal job paying the minimum wage or a dollar more."

The Labor Department collects the same data about H-2A visa applications for all 50 states, but does not make it publicly available. In response to a Freedom of Information Act request from AP, the agency said it would provide some records for nearly $11,000, but it was not clear whether the information would show how many Americans had applied for farm labor jobs nationwide.

Even California officials say the guest worker program needs fixing, despite a reform effort announced in February by Labor Secretary Hilda Solis meant to boost efforts to fill crop-picking jobs first with domestic workers.

Benjamin Reynosa, who was picking ruby-colored grapes in 90-degree heat near Fowler Friday morning, said he often is the only U.S. legal resident on seasonal crews. He said most people hear about the jobs through word of mouth or signs tacked outside rural stores, not the electronic registry.

"I've been working in agriculture for 22 years and I can tell you there are very few gringos out here," said Reynosa, 49, of Orange Cove, said. "If people know English, they go to work in packinghouses or sit in an office."

In Tulare County, where the unemployment rate is above 16 percent, job seekers on a recent morning crowded around computers at the job development agency. Staff appeared unaware the guest worker program required them to advertise the jobs.

"We just don't advertise those kinds of farmworker jobs," said Sandi Miller, program coordinator for the county's work force investment board.

Amid the U.S. Army flyers posted in the lobby, however, under the heading "HOT JOB LEADS" was an ad for a farmworker position, preferring someone with Spanish fluency and tractor maintenance skills.

Miller said later it was the first she had seen such a notice. She hadn't received any applications, she said.

link (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_immigration_jobs;_ylt=AqgnmT1X83z0sVfz8Resjpwk5 I94;_ylu=X3oDMTMxNTRib2FqBGFzc2V0Ay9zL2FwL3VzX2ltb WlncmF0aW9uX2pvYnMEY2NvZGUDbXBfZWNfOF8xMARjcG9zAzQ EcG9zAzQEc2VjA3luX3RvcF9zdG9yaWVzBHNsawNkZXNwaXRlZ WNvbm8-)

chad
27th September 2010, 11:17 AM
this story is complete bullshit. my family in iowa had 4 tor 5 imes the number of people applying for jobs to walk corn + beans this summer, and A LOT of them were professional people. my uncle even had 2 college professors running a rouging crew.

i see an increasing number of bullshit farm related stories in the media lately. i don't know what it means, but someone is hawking an agenda of some sort...

MNeagle
27th September 2010, 11:32 AM
My guess is sympathy for keeping the illegals here...

Thanks for the front-line report.

chad
27th September 2010, 11:34 AM
My guess is sympathy for keeping the illegals here...

Thanks for the front-line report.


i concur with the illegals idea. has to be it. keep pushing the "work americans don't want to do" agenda.

Ash_Williams
27th September 2010, 01:50 PM
I grew up in tobacco country where this was the case. Every summer the mexicans came to town to work in tobacco. Pay was $90 a day back then, which was very good. If you weren't an immigrant you got $120 a day - some kids from my high school would do that and earn more than their parents. Of course, the welfare families in town (we had only three) were above that kind of work.

The government paid the farmers to stop growing tobacco so most of the fields have become corn fields now (so no labor, just machines) but some tobacco fields remain and if I drive through the old town on a summer evening a few mexicans are still out riding rusty bikes and hanging around the phone booth waiting their turn to call home.

cedarchopper
27th September 2010, 03:17 PM
Just like that skinny comedian testifying before Congress...the jest of it was keep the illegals.

cedarchopper
27th September 2010, 03:29 PM
In my town we have an ongoing situation that involves a young intern on a big shot local ranch supposedly killing himself with 2 gunshots in the mouth...except he was probably murdered by an illegal. The people who own the ranch are very prominent and wealthy...everybody is covering up for them. Except the young man's parent are not being rolled over.

The JP ruled it a suicide without an autopsy. The parents paid for an autopsy and the Medical Examiner found he had been shot twice in the mouth. They still ruled it a suicide. One of the illegals present at the time of death is gone to Mexico.

A ruling of suicide lets the ranch owners off the hook. If illegals under the ranch owners hire murdered him...while invited to participate in an internship, big liability.

6000 acre prime game ranch...the owner was in insurance and sold his company for $150,000,000. Money like that buys lots of influence.

Ponce
27th September 2010, 05:14 PM
Nothing like cutting sugar cane in 120-130 degree heat to learn what hard work is like, not by me but by those that I used to see where my dad was the sugar mill chieff engineer........you could acutally see the heat waves coming off the ground right under them.

EE_
27th September 2010, 05:33 PM
If Americans had to farm and harvest crops, it would be automated already. People would be sitting in an air conditioned booth with a joy stick in hand.
No need to automate farming when you can get criminals to do it for practically nothing and no benefits.

skid
27th September 2010, 09:25 PM
If Americans had to farm and harvest crops, it would be automated already. People would be sitting in an air conditioned booth with a joy stick in hand.
No need to automate farming when you can get criminals to do it for practically nothing and no benefits.


+1

However there are some things that can only be done by hand. I'm a weekend farm warrior, and even with machines it is still tough hard work. At the end of a day a cold beer goes done real good!

It's even tougher for people like me as I also have a day job that pays for everything, leaving less spare time to get the work done. Farming takes some time to get money coming in if you are just starting out, especially if you're a small timer like me.

I advertised for unskilled help to pull weeds and other farm/orchard related jobs and had 2 interested people. And they wanted min. $20/hr. I agreed to that and they never showed up. I guess times aren't tough enough.

etc
27th September 2010, 09:55 PM
Doesn't surprise me at all. There goes that myth that only if all illegals got deported, we would all have 20/hour gigs with good benefits.

goldleaf
28th September 2010, 08:11 AM
3 of our boys always got farm jobs when they were in highschool. Baling hay, fenceing, milking cows and
what ever other jobs they could find. I always thought it interesting that whenever the employer asked
them what they wanted, the boys would just say to pay them whatever they thought they were worth.
They always got more than they expected, usually cash too! Their friends wouldn't do this kind of work though, as their parents would always be giving them money. With 7 kids theres no way I could do that.

The two oldest ones are now in their early 20's working 30 dollar an hour construction jobs saving to buy their own farms and buying old tractors to fix/paint and resell in the winter. I might also add that they each have about 1000oz. of silver too.

If the population would teach the young to start working at an early age we wouldn't have alot of the problems we now have. There are some good jobs out there, if people don't mind sweating a little. Everybody can't be sitting on these damn computers or gambling on the stockmarket. We need productive people.

woodman
28th September 2010, 05:20 PM
I get really tired of hearing the 'Americans won't do this kind of work' bullshit. I've worked hard manual labor for much of my life and the many people I've worked with have been willing to work alongside and keep up with me. Nationality doesn't mean shit. Lazy people are found in every country. Hard workers abound as long as there is incentive and they see those around them working with a will.

The Mexicans only seem like good workers because five an hour here beats 65 cents an hour back home. They are damn glad to have what they regard as decent paying work. Put them on food stamps and welfare and see what happens.

Cebu_4_2
28th September 2010, 06:43 PM
I'll fvckin work man, need income.

Book
28th September 2010, 07:00 PM
http://images.quickblogcast.com/83661-73154/garden_grandma.jpg

Why can't grandma grow our food instead of just flowers?

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