Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Farmworkers face coronavirus risk: ‘You can’t pick strawberries over Zoom’

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

81–90 of 137 posts

Re: Farmworkers face coronavirus risk: ‘You can’t pick strawberries over Zoom’

#81

Post by [deleted] »

missedthecue wrote: post #66
lotsofpulp wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would the value they create or "fair pay" be measured?

Things like "fair pay" and "living wage" are political talking points. In short, what the living wage is really about is not living standards, or economics, but morality. Its advocates refuse to come to terms with the fact that wages are market price–determined by supply and demand, the same as the price of oil, steel, corn, or coal. And it is for that reason, rather than the practical details, that the broader polit…

[deleted]

Re: Farmworkers face coronavirus risk: ‘You can’t pick strawberries over Zoom’

#82

Post by thatcat »

missedthecue wrote: post #66
lotsofpulp wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would the value they create or "fair pay" be measured?

Things like "fair pay" and "living wage" are political talking points. In short, what the living wage is really about is not living standards, or economics, but morality. Its advocates refuse to come to terms with the fact that wages are market price–determined by supply and demand, the same as the price of oil, steel, corn, or coal. And it is for that reason, rather than the practical details, that the broader polit…

Lol, the price of corn, or even oil, coal, and steel are constantly adjusted by gov. You've proven the opposite of your point - market price is political and can be controlled when it is politically favorable.

Re: Farmworkers face coronavirus risk: ‘You can’t pick strawberries over Zoom’

#83

Post by earthshot »

mensetmanusman wrote: post #51

Remember, flattening the curve doesn’t necessarily mean that fewer people in total get sick, the area under the curve might be the same, esp. if it becomes like the common cold in terms of evading our immune system. We are just trying to buy time to ramp up production of materials that can reduce the burden on the medical system.

The case fatality rate changes quite dramatically when hospitals are overloaded. Additionally, the fatality rate of _other_ causes increases when hospitals are overloaded.

Flatting the curve saves lives even if the total number of infected people remains the same.

Re: Farmworkers face coronavirus risk: ‘You can’t pick strawberries over Zoom’

#84

Post by thatcat »

missedthecue wrote: post #66
lotsofpulp wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How would the value they create or "fair pay" be measured?

Things like "fair pay" and "living wage" are political talking points. In short, what the living wage is really about is not living standards, or economics, but morality. Its advocates refuse to come to terms with the fact that wages are market price–determined by supply and demand, the same as the price of oil, steel, corn, or coal. And it is for that reason, rather than the practical details, that the broader polit…

Lol, the price of corn, or even oil, coal, and steel are constantly adjusted by gov policies. You've proven the opposite of your point - market price is political and can be controlled when it is politically favorable.

Re: Farmworkers face coronavirus risk: ‘You can’t pick strawberries over Zoom’

#85

Post by jnwatson »

thatcat wrote: post #82
missedthecue wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Things like "fair pay" and "living wage" are political talking points. In short, what the living wage is really about is not living standards, or economics, but morality. Its advocates refuse to come to terms with the fact that wages are market price–determined by supply and demand, the same as the price of oil, steel, corn, or coal. And it is for that reason, rather than the practical details, that the broader polit…

Lol, the price of corn, or even oil, coal, and steel are constantly adjusted by gov. You've proven the opposite of your point - market price is political and can be controlled when it is politically favorable.

The government doesn't control the price of corn, oil, coal, or steel except indirectly via government policy.

Re: Farmworkers face coronavirus risk: ‘You can’t pick strawberries over Zoom’

#86

Post by hitpointdrew »

wscott wrote: post #39

Sorry, I am going to be the insensitive sleazeball here. The point of staying at home is not that if you get this disease you are going to die. The issue is that if we ALL get it then a larger proportion of people are going to die because we don't have enough hospitals. We had to choose some people as being important enough that they are allowed to be out and about and use some of that valuable limited healthcare res…

> If this goes south, you may wish that you were one of the people who got the disease early.

This is my biggest fear.

Re: Farmworkers face coronavirus risk: ‘You can’t pick strawberries over Zoom’

#88

Post by hitpointdrew »

groby_b wrote: post #49
wscott wrote: post #39

Sorry, I am going to be the insensitive sleazeball here. The point of staying at home is not that if you get this disease you are going to die. The issue is that if we ALL get it then a larger proportion of people are going to die because we don't have enough hospitals. We had to choose some people as being important enough that they are allowed to be out and about and use some of that valuable limited healthcare res…

"during this period"? They're as essential to our survival even if we're not in a pandemic. It's maybe time we recognized that and stopped exploiting labor just because it's unskilled. If we paid them by the value they actually create. I'd really urge you to reconsider your stance, and be there to help them advocate for fair pay even when this is over.

No farms, no food.

Re: Farmworkers face coronavirus risk: ‘You can’t pick strawberries over Zoom’

#89

Post by germinalphrase »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #80
wscott wrote: post #39

Sorry, I am going to be the insensitive sleazeball here. The point of staying at home is not that if you get this disease you are going to die. The issue is that if we ALL get it then a larger proportion of people are going to die because we don't have enough hospitals. We had to choose some people as being important enough that they are allowed to be out and about and use some of that valuable limited healthcare res…

I think it's pretty sad we passed a $2.2T stimulus bill, with $500Bn in unemployment benefits, so the average person that gets laid off can make about $60k a year (adjusted for taxes) to not work -- and we did hardly nothing to protect people that actually need to work and are at high risk! Worst of all, most of these jobs are low paying -- much less than you'd get from the current unemployment. We basically created…

Can you provide references with regard to your unemployment claims. Here in minnesota you receive about 50 percent of your weekly wages up to a max of $740 a week. That hardly seems like an incentive to get laid off (note that you don’t collect unemployment if you voluntarily leave a job, i.e. quit).

Re: Farmworkers face coronavirus risk: ‘You can’t pick strawberries over Zoom’

#90

Post by chipotle_coyote »

ng12 wrote: post #74
groby_b wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, some exposure does not need to happen. You could bring in the harvest just fine without exposure. We're choosing not to, because it'd cost precious money, and that's the god we'd like to worship. With the exact same kind of logic you use, one could also argue that it's not necessary work. Some starving just needs to happen. No? Not good logic? Then explain to me why your life matters more than farm worker lives?

Zero exposure for someone working on a farm is utterly unrealistic.

Zero exposure is probably unrealistic for everyone, but it's not unrealistic to give farm workers disposable masks, gloves, hand sanitizers, and washing stations, put effort into keeping them six feet apart as they work, and provide sufficient paid leave so they don't feel pressure to keep working even if they believe they're sick. I think that's really what we're talking about here.
Post reply on HN