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Wages rise on California farms, Americans still don’t want the job

latimes.com

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Re: Wages rise on California farms, Americans still don’t want the job

#141

Post by externalities88 »

rm_-rf_slash wrote: post #61
greedo wrote: post #28

When I was younger, I worked at a McDonalds in SoCal. Almost all the employees were white teenagers. The managers were white as well. We didn't make much, just a bit above minimum wage, but we were all mostly high-school students or college students working in the summer to pay tuition. This went on until around 1984 or so, when it became much harder to hire this demographic. It wasn't as cool to work at fast food, a…

Nothing helped me appreciate education and hard work like working as a produce clerk at a second rate grocery store, seeing day in, day out, the same customers buying the same horrible processed foods, and the same burnout co-workers showing up stoned out of their minds to deal with the shit jobs they work to afford their weed to help them deal with their shit jobs. Taught me more about life than any class or book ev…

Here I am working for one poorly run tech company after another, jumping to the next as they die, hoping my salary won't go down as cost of living goes up, dealing with the same kludgy tools and frameworks and short sighted management.

That degree and hard work got me more money. The rest is all the same

Re: Wages rise on California farms, Americans still don’t want the job

#142

Post by nilkn »

> Trump’s border crackdown is supposed to help U.S. citizens. For California farmers, it’s creating a desperate shortage of help.

I'm immediately skeptical. What has Trump even done on the border that would have any effect on this at all right now?

Trump has done almost nothing on this front. Even his controversial travel ban (which is completely unrelated to Mexican immigration) has been shot down three times.

Re: Wages rise on California farms, Americans still don’t want the job

#143

Post by dragonwriter »

nilkn wrote: post #142

> Trump’s border crackdown is supposed to help U.S. citizens. For California farmers, it’s creating a desperate shortage of help. I'm immediately skeptical. What has Trump even done on the border that would have any effect on this at all right now? Trump has done almost nothing on this front. Even his controversial travel ban (which is completely unrelated to Mexican immigration) has been shot down three times.

> What has Trump even done on the border that would have any effect on this at all right now?

The series of highly-publicized immigration raids and deportation actions targeting, in many cases, categories of persons who.were previously not deportation priorities.

Re: Wages rise on California farms, Americans still don’t want the job

#144

Post by empath75 »

samirillian wrote: post #66

This argument is a bit double-edged. Okay, so it's implicitly immoral to keep immigrants out. But it's moral to hire them for jobs that Americans won't do because they're so unpleasant?

I think it's immoral to keep immigrants out. I think we should make it dramatically easier for people to emigrate to the us and work these kinds of jobs.

At the same time, I think we should make an effort to ensure people are doing it legally and benefit from the same worker protections that make hiring citizens so expensive. And we should crack down on people who hire undocumented workers or off the books employees.

I think if we did that, it would dramatically cut down on immigration without imposing quotas because there won't be huge numbers of jobs for unskilled workers making slave wages.

Farmers that want to do that will have to move their operations to Mexico or some other country with lax labor laws.

Re: Wages rise on California farms, Americans still don’t want the job

#145

Post by sctb »

orf wrote: post #89
datatan wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh look, he used the word stupid. Obviously he must be right. I mean, such a well reason argument can't be ignored can it?

Oh look, he used a sarcastic comment as a comeback. That means all illegal immigrants are scabs! Such a well reason ed argument can't be ignored, can it?

Please stop this, both of you.

Re: Wages rise on California farms, Americans still don’t want the job

#146

Post by nilkn »

dragonwriter wrote: post #143
nilkn wrote: post #142

> Trump’s border crackdown is supposed to help U.S. citizens. For California farmers, it’s creating a desperate shortage of help. I'm immediately skeptical. What has Trump even done on the border that would have any effect on this at all right now? Trump has done almost nothing on this front. Even his controversial travel ban (which is completely unrelated to Mexican immigration) has been shot down three times.

> What has Trump even done on the border that would have any effect on this at all right now? The series of highly-publicized immigration raids and deportation actions targeting, in many cases, categories of persons who.were previously not deportation priorities.

Immigration raids? Those have been going on forever now. Deportation is not new under Trump. I assume they must be happening on mass scale starting months ago to have had any effect on this already. He's barely been in office 50 days.

Re: Wages rise on California farms, Americans still don’t want the job

#147

Post by st3v3r »

datatan wrote: post #83
dragonwriter wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How do we get the unemployed Midwesterners into Napa Valley? Just a thought: Government loans with low interest, delayed and income-contingent repayment, and forgiveness after a set period of on-time payments for relocation expenses for unemployed adults with job offers outside of their own immediate area. Getting people to where the work is good for the public fisc, good for employers, and good for the people invo…

Why is the first instinct of every Democrat/Liberal to have Government subsidize everything? If the wages and cost of living were there people would come. Solve the problem, don't subsidize it and create more problems. Absolutely insane.

How would they get there if they have no money?

Re: Wages rise on California farms, Americans still don’t want the job

#148

Post by bsder »

itchyjunk wrote: post #91

"Trump’s border crackdown is supposed to help U.S. citizens. For California farmers, it’s creating a desperate shortage of help." (Disclamer: I am an immigrant whose paper work is still ongoing) From the article, it seemed like at least for some their business model was questionable. If the only way to be profitable is to rely on illegal immigrant or non-competitive wages (one of the farmers mentioned could only stay…

> Seeing as how grapes seems to be used in wine industry, wouldn't the wine industry pay more for the grapes as supply dwindles and make it profitable again?

Grapes, IIRC, have a multi-year cycle time. You don't just drop in a set of vines and have a useful harvest for wine in 6 months. As such, that dents the supply/demand cycle and turns it into a game of "chicken".

If I know that we're all hurting growing grapes, the only question is whether I can hold out longer than the other folks who go bankrupt and finally shrink the supply.

Re: Wages rise on California farms, Americans still don’t want the job

#149

Post by mc32 »

diogenescynic wrote: post #87
greedo wrote: post #28

When I was younger, I worked at a McDonalds in SoCal. Almost all the employees were white teenagers. The managers were white as well. We didn't make much, just a bit above minimum wage, but we were all mostly high-school students or college students working in the summer to pay tuition. This went on until around 1984 or so, when it became much harder to hire this demographic. It wasn't as cool to work at fast food, a…

There are plenty of white teenagers who work at every In-N-Out I've ever been to--because they pay better. Otherwise those kids, in nicer areas like you point to, have better alternatives for minimum wage like retail. The reason the jobs you describe are being replaced by immigrants is because the wages have been stagnant or not kept up with inflation. Unskilled immigrants take labor jobs that Americans aren't really…

Where I live in SF, there is a coffee shop owner who hires your regular high school/college student, next door there is a grocery store which mostly hires spanish speakers. One seems to make the choice to hire young kids, the other hires cheap labor.

Re: Wages rise on California farms, Americans still don’t want the job

#150

Post by pjkundert »

busterarm wrote: post #62

Have a friend whose family owns a tree nursery in Texas. They tried very hard to hire Americans. Most of the people they talk to just aren't up to the job. Most people they did hire quit the first day because the work was too hard. After the fourth American cut the tip of their pinky off in the first couple of hours on the job and sued, they stopped trying.

I've long suspected that it may eventually become problematic, that an entire generation's median capability set is "able to suck slurpee through a straw".

I think I'm in the minority, though...

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