Unemployed Americans Won't Do AgJobs! Time for Immigration Reform!!

Over the past 20 years, the USA has lost Global and Domestic Agricultural Market Share to Foreign Competitors. Even though America has some of the richest farming lands in the world, America cannot staff sufficient number of Agjobs to harvest the crops grown in the USA. So instead, these agricultural markets and jobs are outsourced overseas.

The insufficient number of workers willing to perform AgJobs in America is continuing to dwindle. This is not an economic issue. American Workers simply DO NOT WANT to perform these jobs. The work is too hard. The wages too low.

Today, there are sufficient Latino Workers willing to immigrate, come as Guest Workers willing to do these jobs, the jobs they have performed for decades. But they WON'T COME! Why? Because of the Hate-Filled Era created by the AM Shock-Jocks like Glenn Beck, Lou Dobbs, Hannity and Limbaugh.

Now, more than ever, it is important that we discuss and pass Comprehensive Immigration Reform in our Country. We should fix our broken processes, fix the backlog in the immigration courts, establish a path for legalization for those here felonious free, and most of all, end the era of Hate Crimes against Latinos and allow a Guest Worker program that works.

Guest Voz: Dick Joyce - owner - Sherwood -based Joyce Farms:
Dick Joyce's father started the family farm in 1910 and over the years sold everything from grain to dairy products, cattle and hazelnuts. During harvest, Joyce says, neighboring farmers would go from farm to farm with a community threshing machine to cut the grain.
When the Joyce farm grew to include cherry orchards, during harvest time the family bused in pickers from Portland's West Burnside Street, Joyce says. Most were "Anglos," he says, and a few were African Americans.
"Some people termed them as 'winos,' others as 'fruit tramps,'" Joyce says. "These guys would travel and follow the crops."
At other orchard, nursery and berry operations, women and children worked during summers to pick crops, Joyce says. When laws restricted children's work in agriculture, "the children didn't get training, they didn't get the incentive to work," he says.
And more Oregonians left the rural areas for city life, Joyce says. "Over time, as their economic situation improved, people were not interested in farm work."
In the 1980s, the state saw a rapid influx of Mexicans, who filled the hole in the labor market, Joyce says. "Nobody was displaced as a result of their coming."
Joyce, who has sold most of his land, now runs a 40-acre fruit tree nursery and a maintenance business. He employs about 20 permanent workers -- all Latinos. Many have worked for him for more than two decades, he says, and he now employs their children.
"Culturally, white Americans have moved away from agriculture, and it isn't a matter of money at all," Joyce says. "There's no amount of money that you can lay on the table to make them work."
Joyce hopes to see a change in immigration law that would tighten borders and allow farmworkers to gain legal status.
Monty Smith, former farmworker, Scio
Monty Smith has done farm work since he was 12. He has worked on horse ranches, dairy farms, berry farms, plus cattle, sheep and goat farms. His family, originally from Oklahoma, followed crops from state to state.
"I love farming; sometimes it's very rewarding," he says, "though it could be a real pain."
Smith, 38, says most of his family and neighbors have dropped out of agriculture. He lives in rural Linn County south of Salem, but none of his friends do farm work.
"Farming is just something the American people don't do anymore," he says.
Most of the time, Smith has worked with Latinos and was "the only white guy working." White, non-Latino Americans shy away from agriculture, he says, because of low pay.
"It seems to me like a lot of Oregon workers are looking for higher-pay jobs -- $11 to $12 an hour -- not minimum wage," Smith says. "It takes a lot for a person to raise their family, and farms don't pay that."
Farm work can mean eight- to 18-hour days, toiling in the scorching sun or cold rain, relocating and having little family time. And many farmers don't pay overtime.
Smith was a farmworker, he says, because he didn't have family obligations. (He separated from his wife eight years ago, and his two children live in Missouri.) But last spring he got a job as a heavy-equipment operator with Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, patching potholes and fixing water pipes. He doesn't plan to return to farm work.
Reference:
Stable farm labor seems elusive in global economy

ANTIs throwing Hissy Fit over Feinstein´s Needed Farm Worker Bill

The ANTI sites are in an uproar over the AgJobs Bill Dianne Feinstein has tagged on to an Iraq spending bill which is destined for the Senate Floor next week. Roy Beck from NumbersUSA, alipac and other sites are having their robotic ANTI followers mass sending pre-written rage email, free faxes and scripted phone calls to the beleaguered members of Congress. Hopefully Congress will understand these blind sheep do not represent the vast majority of Americans who are tired of spending outrageous amounts of $$ for fruit and vegetables and are actually looking for some relief to the overpricing and gas gouging currently taxing their pocketbooks! Check out some of the ANTI sites and read their "Hissy Fits" over the possibility of this bill passing and saving Citizens millions in future grocery bills.

Now, Read the SCOOP on what Sen. Feinstein is actually trying to accomplish:

Feinstein farmworker bill takes a baby step forward

OC Register Reports: Thursday, May 15, 2008

Determined to address an emergency situation in the U.S. agriculture industry, Senator Dianne Feinstein persuaded her colleagues on the Appropriations Committee today to add a scaled-down version of her Ag Jobs bill to the Iraq spending bill destined for the Senate floor. "We need this legislation because in the last year 13,280 farms in the United States have shut down, and others have moved their operation to Mexico'' between 2006 and 2007, Feinstein, D-Calif., said at the Appropriations panel meeting to vote on the Iraq bill. Of the closed farms, 1,000 were in California. The committee approved her measure by a 17-12 vote.
The provision Feinstein hopes can survive a Senate floor vote and get approved by House members as well falls short of the permanent fix she had hoped to provide for an industry she says is in crisis because of an acute labor shortage. Under today's amendment, farm workers who have worked in agriculture within the past four years will be able to work legally for growers for five years. The measure doesn't include any path to legal status or citizenship...This more modest approach is likely to draw support, especially from lawmakers who don't want to give any permanent status to immigrants who entered the country illegally or who overstayed their visas.
But there is a determined group of senators and House members who oppose any benefits for people who broke immigration law and say there wouldn't be a labor shortage if growers paid higher wages. And it's likely that those lawmakers might try and add enforcement provisions to the bill that would be objected to by members who might otherwise approve of the agriculture provisions. Some immigration advocates have also expressed concern that if individual immigration issues are dealt with separately, it will make it harder to get a broad comprehensive bill passed. But Michele Waslin, senior policy analyst for the Immigration Policy Center, a pro-immigration think tank, said agriculture "has always been its own issue. I think Feinstein is showing us there is an appetite for balanced reform. Employers need workers and it just makes sense at this point in time."

Michigan´s Conflicting Economic Story: Losing Auto & Manufacturing "Union Pay Scale" Jobs; Workers leave State vs taking Low Wage Jobs!

As I study the Economic News about Michigan, I can only be heart-broken. I am a Michigan girl at heart, born and raised in the shadow of the Capital. What is curious to me are the conflicting stories. Below I am sharing three articles. The first two focus primarily on the Auto Industry, GM laying off thousands of workers and staffing new jobs at half the salary. The third about the AgJobs Labor Shortages and Michigan´s quest to immigrate in migrant laborers from Texas and Mexico.

My question is, if the ROOT CAUSE is Business Profitability and Government policies, and we compound this with there are in fact jobs Americans won´t do (e.g. AgJobs, Manufacturing Jobs at Non Union Scale), then what will be the impact if there are no more manufacturing jobs in the U.S. at Union Scale?

Newsweek Reports: ECONOMY - Driving Towards Disaster By Keith Naughton Newsweek Web Exclusive - Jan 28, 2008 Michigan has been an economic wasteland for virtually the entire decade. Its fortunes riding shotgun with America's ailing auto industry, Michigan has lost more than 400,000 manufacturing jobs since 1999. Its unemployment rate, 7.6 percent in December, has been at or near the highest in the nation since 2003. FOR SALE signs dot the landscape, even in the neighborhood of GM chairman Rick Wagoner. But there are few buyers: Foreclosures have quadrupled in the last two years, according to the Web site RealtyTrac.com. The Sunday Detroit Free Press recently printed a 121-page section listing thousands of homes facing foreclosure. And in the last year, 30,500 people have left Michigan, Census officials estimate. "Michigan is the worst economy in the country, by far," says economist Mark Zandi of Moody's Economy.com. "But the financial pain Michigan is suffering now will become evident in many other parts of the country by this summer." ...Sure, the auto industry is to blame for Michigan's malaise. (Just last week, Ford, which lost $15.3 billion in the last two years, offered buyouts to all 54,000 of its U.S. factory workers). But many of the factors that drove Detroit into the ditch--$100-a-barrel oil, the credit crisis, globalization--also are preying on the rest of the nation.

WSJ Article: Ford Looks to Trim Up to 13,000 More Jobs One of Ford's goals with the latest buyouts is to replace many workers with new employees who will earn a lower wage under terms of its recently negotiated labor agreement. New hires will earn a little more than $14 an hour, about half of what current union workers earn.

From Dispatch.com:

Michigan officials seek to attract Hispanic farm workers
Associated Press - Friday, February 16, 2007 7:02 AM
Michigan officials are trying to lure more migrant farm workers to the state this year, hoping to avoid labor shortages that hurt the agriculture industry last harvest. The marketing pitch is "Venga a Michigan", which is Spanish for "Come to Michigan." The slogan is part of a promotional effort that Michigan's Department of Labor and Economic Growth is using to try to lure potential workers to the state. Department officials last week visited nine sites throughout Texas, targeting areas with large Hispanic populations that also have high unemployment rates. The goal was "to promote Michigan agriculture and the various services available," Rick Olivarez, a state monitor advocate, said during a meeting this week of the Michigan Interagency Migrant Services Committee. The Michigan group met with 400 to 500 families, according to The Muskegon Chronicle. State officials are planning a similar recruiting trip to Florida later this winter. Agriculture is the second-largest industry in Michigan. According to state census estimates, approximately 90,000 migrant laborers -- including their families -- come to Michigan each year. State officials want to avoid a repeat of last year, when some employers had difficulty finding enough migrant workers, Olivarez said.