Arturo Rodrigez, president of United Farm Workers, joins Stephen Colbert to discuss the impact illegal immigrants have on American workers. Additionally, he discusses the difficulty of agriculture work and insists that most Americans don’t want this kind of work. The above application is on his website at www.takeourjobs.org. He had 3 applications he has placed in the fields. Colbert makes the 4th.
According to the Farm Worker Campaign:
Missing from the debate on both issues is an honest recognition that the food we all eat – at home, in restaurants and workplace cafeterias (including those in the Capitol) – comes to us from the labor of undocumented farm workers.
Agriculture in the United States is dependent on an immigrant workforce. Three-quarters of all crop workers working in American agriculture were born outside the United States. According to government statistics, since the late 1990s, at least 50% of the crop workers have not been authorized to work legally in the United States.
We are a nation in denial about our food supply. As a result the UFW has initiated the “Take Our Jobs” campaign.
Farm workers are ready to welcome citizens and legal residents who wish to replace them in the field. We will use our knowledge and staff to help connect the unemployed with farm employers. Just fill out the form to the right and continue on to the request for job application.
| The Colbert Report | Mon – Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c | |||
| Arturo Rodriguez | ||||
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Some people might say that the farmers just need to pay higher wages, well, O.K., I have no problem with that, but remember, that means a substantial increase in produce costs. For our family, we already buy local or organic fruits and veggies, which tends to cost more anyway, are you prepared to pay a much higher cost? For every action there is a reaction, don’t forget.
Those most inclined to do this type of work generally don’t hang out on the internet. So, it’s a smart move from the unions perspective. Because, it’ll bring very, very few people in and grab headlines.
I’d laugh however if a large group of men applied and said they’d do it as long as they were non-union jobs. 🙂
People are fairly resourceful about the internet now. They use friends, libraries, etc. I just don’t think most Americans want this kind of work. I shudder to suggest that most are too soft now.
Might be a red herring here, Elena. There was a good article recently in the business section of the Seattle Times on this very subject. It backs up what I have seen elsewhere. For instance, according to PEW research (which I have also seen firsthand), only 3.4% of the 7.2 million illegal workers in the U.S. are engaged in the agricultural sector. This reflects a long downward trend in the number of all farm workers in this country, largely because of mechanization and imported agricultural products. Of the total of all agricultural workers in the U.S., the illegal workers make up about 29% of that overall number. The rest are American citizens, legal immigrants,or foreign labor imported under the H2A visa program.
According to the Seattle Times article, Iowa State University agricultural economists did a study about a decade ago based on the hypothetical disappearance of all illegal farm workers. Their conclusions were that, because labor demands would raise salaries, there would be a 30% increase in the cost of ag products in the short run, diminishing to about 15% in the middle term, and eventually dropping to about 3% in the long run, largely because farmers would shift to more mechanization or out of labor-intensive crops. According to Washington State ag authorities, even if a shift to all legal farm workers raised the cost of labor for Washington apples by 30%, labor costs represent only 7% of the total costs. All things considered, the increase in labor costs without illegal workers would, in their judgement, add up to an increase of only about 3 cents for the cost of a pound of apples.
There seems to be quite a debate, then and now, as to whether or not Cesar Chavez himself was opposed to illegal immigration because illegal farm workers drove down the wages of legal workers and were sometimes used as strikebreakers by unscrupulous growers. I recall seeing some reports that he led a symbolic march down to the Mexican border to protest the ill effects of illegal immigration on his own unionized workers. On the other hand, he also supported the 1986 amnesty, probably because legal workers would then become part of his organization at higher prevailing wages.
I agree with #3 based on the fact that the growers must compete. The cheapest method to pick crops may be manual labor now, but if wages are forced up then mechanization will take its place. A good example is the fiber installs done by Verizon’s subcontractors. They used a dozen guys with shovels to dig the ditches around my home, yet ditches haven’t been dug using manual labor in general for decades. Suddenly one day the guys with shovels disappeared and a ditch witch was on the job instead. ICE investigation or something to that affect.
Another alternative is to move the jobs south of the border and import our food supply. Then kick out the half million high tech workers from India who have overstayed their visas and outsource their work. In fact, this is already happening, US companies are setting-up shop outside our borders and profittering from our failed immigration policy.
Many years ago–65 to be exact–I spent a summer working in a lettuce field in California hoeing weeds. My uncle worked on the same mega farm irrigating artichokes and surgar beets. Later in the summer I picked black berries for 50 cents a flat. We both learned something that summer–we didn’t want to do that again. Farm work is hard and very unforgiving. Crops and animals demand care in all kinds of weather.
If you want to get an idea of why farm owners are willing to hire illegal workers, take a look at the H2A visa rules here: http://www.dol.gov/compliance/guide/taw.htm
We have met the enemy and they are us.
@Wolverine
Wolverine, I wonder how Pew got that number when so many illegal workers hide. I put little faith in stats.
Furthermore, these workers have no protection and incredibly low pay.
We have few work programs in this nation in spite of the fact that so many of our workers are not from the U.S. I guess it’s cheaper to hire cheap labor that can’t sue employers, eh?
For all intensive purposes, these people are slaves.
From the NYTimes article I did on silent raids day before yesterday:
I believe 60% is more accurate. Less than 4% is a drop in the bucket. Wolverine, I think we have discussed that number before and I can’t remember if we decided anything.
60% of farm workers may be right, but it may also represent 3.4% of people here illegally, Wolfie. The stats are not in conflict.
apples and oranges
Mechanize. Australia has very little immigration but still competes in the market for food. While I visited there, I did not notice high food prices. Actually they were lower than here. They solved the lack of labor problem by ingenuity and building machines that could harvest a variety of crops.
When the strawberry picker arrives, let me know.
What’s wrong with a guest worker program so crops get picked and people aren’t in the USA illegally?
Here is something dating back to 2005 regarding the number of workers in agriculture. Not sure I buy it.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1423667/posts
Too funny. I just took at quiz on the Pew Institute about how millennial I was.
http://pewresearch.org/millennials/quiz/intro.php
I will tell later where I turned out.
And how do you ensure that the guest workers leave?
I scored an 11. But I refuse to be called a baby boomer because I was born in 1964. 1962 is too late to be a baby boomer.
Here’s one on satisfaction with the government: http://pewresearch.org/satisfaction/
I scored a 1. I’m more satisfied with the government than 6% of the respondents. I find that number incredible. 6% of respondents on a computer survey are have a worse opinion than I do! The results page when you hit “See all” is fascinating. My take is that there are a great number of unhappy people out there. Many of the independents are fed up.
@cargosquid
I scored a 70!
@cargosquid
I score “1” on that quiz, too.
I think 1964 was the cut off for boomers. I scored an 18, and got labeled a boomer which is …true. i wear it proudly.
Cargo, would you prefer to be a generation x-er?
Did you all see the article on what divides America?
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1354/social-conflict-in-america
I think that the period of 1958 to 1965 should be a small group in and of itself. Too young to enjoy the 60’s but too old to be a gen-Xer. Or I may be an outlier. My mother was born in 1919, and Republican all of her life, very conservative politically, socially liberal when it came to race, conservative when it came to morality, but, a “questioner” when it came to doctrine. She paid attention to the sermons and then questioned the priest about it and made him justify positions. As to abortion, right out. Homosexuality, that’s their business and God’s. Military, two sons and two grandsons served. Then again, my anti-communist sister is now a true blue bleeding heart Maryland liberal. (She married a New Yawka from Lonnga Island.) And she’s the oldest and definitely a baby boomer. I think that’s why I object to the label. I got a lot my my politics from her and then moved on from there.
politics from my mother, not my sister. Just read the above and it looks confusing there.
Moon: From what I have seen, those PEW stats appear to be the ones favored by the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture itself, although I have seen DOA figures that put the number between 4% and 5%. You and I can remember a day when almost all our food came from American farms and when much farm labor was by hand. Now I see vegetables and fruits from abroad as often as not, and the mechanization here is often incredible. In the old days in the Midwest, harvest time was marked by teams of men and machines which moved from farm to farm. Drive through the Midwest today at harvest time and you will see whole farms being harvested by one or two one-man combines plus the guys who drive the trucks to the elevators.
Pinko: Last para # 8 — I believe that is exactly what Cesar Chavez thought. Actually, I am one of those in favor of paying ag workers a real living wage, even if I have to absorb some of the cost in my own wallet. I find that advocating such a wage for me and mine but not supporting it for those who put the food on my table and provide me with the other necessities of life is a morally unsupportable position. I support a better and wider guest worker program. I have a relative in the quarry business who imports his seasonal labor from Mexico via the H2A program and swears that it works just fine for his company. Moreover, the workers get better wages plus subsidized medical care and can go home to their families when the season is done. He says that his quarry is a prime example of jobs that Americans just don’t want to do anymore — although I have not talked to him since the unemployment figures began rising in 2008-2009.
Moon, we did have this discussion about PEW before. The numbers get confusing. The 3.4% to 5% represents the numbers of those in the illegal immigrant population per se who are engaged in some way in farm work, as opposed to those in construction, service industries, and the like. The discussion about 29% or 60% or whatever is about what percentage of ALL farm workers — legal and illegal — which that smaller number represents. My conclusion is that illegal immigrants these days are not much different than all the rest of us in opting away from the back-breaking nature of labor-intensive agriculture.
Cargosquid — How do you ensure that guest workers leave? That quarry owner I mentioned in #24 actually goes to the Mexican border himself to pick up and transport the workers to his location at the start of the work season (over 1000 miles one-way) and then drives them all back to the border crossing point when the work season is over. The workers know that, if they want a good paying job next season without the hassles of illegal residence, they must go back home and continue to follow the rules of the program. They seem to be quite happy to comply. The quarry owner says that the only problem he has ever had was when one of the imported “foremen” began scamming some of the other guest workers out of their wages. That “foreman” got a quick ride to the border and was never seen again in this guest worker program.
Wolverine, it sounds like your quarry owner is a decent human being and knows how to make things work.
I wish everyone were that honest and I am glad the foreman got canned.
I still think 4% only in agricultural work seems very low. It sure is a hard way to make a living. Its definitely young people work. That crap ages you real fast.
So, if it is only 4% why are we willing to spend billions upon billions, allow anti hate rhetoric to grow, if ONLY 4% of workers are here undocumented?????? Wow, now THAT is a waste of resources.
@Wolverine
You people and your statistics! Who’s reality are these statistics based on. I believe that they are only to keep”White America” blind or at least pretending to be blind to whats really going on in america and as long as theres no awareness than theres no action or decisions, or accountability to be made except to blame the victims and make them the cause of our nations woes, when the bottom line is it has nothing to do with undocumented farm workers. Lets just say for example that your statistics of 3% is accurate because we’re going to assume that most farm workers are not going to accurately report their illegal use of undocumented workers, then you still have a figure at minimun of 100,000 just in farmworkers alone. So whats your point or anybody else who has something derogatory and/or inflammatory about these workers. I can promise you that most of you people who have agruments against anything that promotes racism and discrimination couldnt do their job for one week! So get a mirror if you want to see where the true problem lies.
I suspect we could track H2As if we chose to do so–it’s a matter of will and resources. Remember a few years ago during the mad cow scare they tracked a cow from a ranch somewhere in Canada to a ranch or feedlot here in the U.S.. Is there any reason to believe we couldn’t do the same with temporary workers?
Wolverine, you’re right about the way it used to be here years ago–most of our food did come from American farms, but you didn’t have things like cantaloupes in December, bell peppers in January, tomatoes in January, etc, etc, etc. If you did have some of these things, they were home canned until Clarence Birdseye came up with fast freezing.
And there are some things that just can’t be done by machine–strawberries are a real good example, peaches are another and things like tomatoes I believe. 50+ years ago in central California, “guest” workers came through and picked beans–one time through and then on to the next thing. Same thing with cabbage, lettuce, carrots, peppers, etc. I lived near a huge pole bean farm at that time and after the pickers left, we were allowed to go in and pick beans–free.
Stoop labor is probably always going to be needed until we go to soylent green but even then we will need someone to pick up the “ingredients” and deliver them to the processing place.
@Moon-howler
Do you suppose the immigrant numbers would have been as high if all the immigrants were white, anglo saxons? Or is the immigrant conflict mostly amount how much melanin a person has? I wonder why the question wasn’t asked. Perhaps because folks don’t want to know the answer.
Elena — I really don’t think that farm labor is that serious a part of the current debate over illegal immigration. You have to take a look at the other 96%. Construction, home building, and home repair are much larger factors. Those were jobs that Americans did, indeed, do. Also the service industry. We may make jokes about servers, dishwashers, car wash employees, lawn cutters, and the like. However, I have run across some very interesting articles about how our own kids and the kids of legal immigrants are being shut out of summer and part-time jobs traditionally used to amass cash to pay for post-secondary education. Employers are trending toward giving such jobs to illegal immigrants. There has been a serious downtrend in this regard for our own kids, beginning about 7-10 years ago. The results appear to be fewer jobs, more attendance at summer schools, and growing student loan debt totals after college graduation. Even into the late 1990’s, my own kids earned college cash by doing such things as waiting on tables, working as fry cooks, installing sheet metal ducts, mowing lawns, and working on recycle trash trucks. They exited college with far lower student loan debts than they probably would now.
I don’t think we live in the right part of the country to see the agricultural workers year round. Our crops are seasonal. I sure haven’t seen many white people doing stoop work in a number of years. Several decades ago white school age kids would go out in the summer and pick berries, tomatoes etc in rural Virginia. I don’t think that happens now and I am not sure why.
Wolverine, my kids worked too. I don’t see the same ambition out of middle class kids now. Maybe I am not looking hard enough.
Wolverine,
Are you suggesting even our high college debt is due to illegal immigration?
I understand that a lot of the so called service jobs at the Atlantic coast resorts are filled with youngsters from Eastern Europe. Have read that they get special short term work permits. Last year, at least, the resorts had trouble finding US life guards, for instance. With the job situation this year, I imagine that has changed.
As for farmworkers; I saw and heard Ceasar Chavez once, a truly charismatic person. Our family and many friends boycotted the grape growers during the 60s. I believe that boycott did bring about somewhat better conditions, but farmworkers still have it very tough.
Shortly after Thanksgiving Day in 1960 CBS showed “Harvest of shame”, a documentary about itinerant farmworkers with Edward R. Murrow as speaker. It was a powerful show.
I suggest you look it up. (many of the workers shown were from the Caribbean islands)
S. Chaney — Stuff it.
Elena — I am suggesting that, if a kid cannot get a summer or part-time job to pay at least partially for his college expenses, it is either old Dad and Mom who pay or a batch of student loans (barring any scholarships). If those jobs are taken by the immigrants, then, yes, actions have consequences. However, I am also just a wee bit inclined to bow in part to Moonhowler’s opinion about the willingness of some of our modern day kids to get out there and search for those jobs — not all, but some. In the end, a mix of both, I guess.
Punch, I can remember a family dinner at my parents in law many years ago. A cousin of my husband was there and spent the entire dinner crying over the lettuce pickers of California. It got a little tendious but I was ‘consciousness raised.’
I sure didn’t boycot the grape growers. I think I made up for your boycott by drinking wine.
Wolverine, maybe I am just not seeing things as I should. My kids delivered newspapers, scooped ice cream and all sorts of other things while in high school. They did it to get their grubby little mitts on some money because I didn’t supply their every want and need. They are pretty proud of their early work ethic.