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

[rosebull]

I'd love a $16 + benefits farm job that allowed me to both lose weight, get stronger, and earn a ton of money doing something honest. Even in CA that amount of money isn't bottom of the barrel and is a hell of a lot better than my job that's $9 in Ohio and my boss owing me $350 with $1300 being owed over 1 1/2 years with ZERO benefits past having a carpool.

.... $16 is almost scraping the bottom of the barrel. Do some research about the costs of things in cali, and livable wages ( don't mean to sound rude ). $9 in most other states will get you much farther than $16 an hour in Cali.

[Darkeon]

Better bring in all the slav-, err, I mean, Illeg-, err.. I mean, needy Mexican immigrants.

[Jastall]

Just to continue from here, US farms are usually 1100 acres or bigger. French farms are on average 130 acres large.

Practically all US farmers are "large land owners" by European standards.

Well, to be fair, there's a lot more land to actually own in the US than in France. But yes, ma and da's quaint farmstead is not the reality anymore in most cases, they're big businesses.

And like any big business, they like to keep wages as low as they can afford. Maybe the wage problem will sort itself out, but the problem of a farmhand being an utterly unattractive option in terms of career will not.

[Allybeboba]

Kek...
The example he gives is two drug addicts living on the streets. Probably could have offered them a job making $50/hr and they wouldn't have taken. It's not that they don't want that particular job, they simply just don't want to work.
Making a blanket statement implying all that Americans won't do something, when in fact only a few out of 320,000,000+ won't do it is very foolish.

[Rooflesstoofless]

My brother-in-law owns a vineyard here in California.

We were sitting in his 4,500 square foot home and his wife had just pulled into their four car garage that has several hundred thousand dollars worth of sports cars and status symbols. He had just come home from yet another vacation this year, this time to go surfing in South America, and his wife was getting ready to leave on a vacation to Africa.

He loves to tell me how much he can't afford to hire people at wages that would attract Americans.

[Allybeboba]

Well, to be fair, there's a lot more land to actually own in the US than in France. But yes, ma and da's quaint farmstead is not the reality anymore in most cases, they're big businesses.

And like any big business, they like to keep wages as low as they can afford. Maybe the wage problem will sort itself out, but the problem of a farmhand being an utterly unattractive option in terms of career will not.

Yes, the US is quite large, and not very population dense. My state, for example, is larger than the size France. Yet, has less than half of the population.
That's just one state.

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My brother-in-law owns a vineyard here in California.

We were sitting in his 4,500 square foot home and his wife had just pulled into their four car garage that has several hundred thousand dollars worth of sports cars and status symbols. He had just come home from yet another vacation this year, this time to go surfing in South America, and his wife was getting ready to leave on a vacation to Africa.

He loves to tell me how much he can't afford to hire people at wages that would attract Americans.

They are living off the fruits of their labor. Their is nothing wrong with that.
The cars they bought, the house they bought etc. employed quite a bit of people.

[Dontrike]

.... $16 is almost scraping the bottom of the barrel. Do some research about the costs of things in cali, and livable wages ( don't mean to sound rude ). $9 in most other states will get you much farther than $16 an hour in Cali.

I think you missed the part where I am getting zero benefits and am owed money from my job while one that gives benefits and pays correctly is a far better situation. Not to sound rude, and to turn a phrase, but perhaps you may want to do research, and by that I mean just read, what I wrote.

[Rooflesstoofless]

Yes, the US is quite large, and not very population dense. My state, for example, is larger than the size France. Yet, has less than half of the population.
That's just one state.

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They are living off the fruits of their labor. Their is nothing wrong with that.
The cars they bought, the house they bought etc. employed quite a bit of people.

Nothing wrong with fruits of your labor. There is, on the other hand, the problem of choosing not to hire legally in order to maintain a lifestyle they can only afford through illegal labor practices.

[Allybeboba]

Nothing wrong with fruits of your labor. There is, on the other hand, the problem of choosing not to hire legally in order to maintain a lifestyle they can only afford through illegal labor practices.

Those people may be migrant workers. The come in just for the season and leave. It is quite legal. Not American "friendly" in my opinion though.

[Rooflesstoofless]

Kek...
The example he gives is two drug addicts living on the streets. Probably could have offered them a job making $50/hr and they wouldn't have taken. It's not that they don't want that particular job, they simply just don't want to work.
Making a blanket statement implying all that Americans won't do something, when in fact only a few out of 320,000,000+ won't do it is very foolish.

This. It honestly sounds like just excuses some farmers want to use so they can continue to hire illegally. I think people forget how much employers stand to gain by not having to pay for putting an American on the books.

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Those people may be migrant workers. The come in just for the season and leave. It is quite legal. Not American "friendly" in my opinion though.

Except it isn't perfectly legal unless the person working for them has a legal right to work in the US.

[Orange Joe]

[Sunseeker]

Except it isn't perfectly legal unless the person working for them has a legal right to work in the US.

Which can be obtained a number of ways. Farm owners can get "seasonal" workers from south of the border, legally, it's just more expensive to do so because they have to pay them and treat them like legal workers, go through government paperwork and all that. There are some companies who will do this for you, but again there's an added cost because you're not just giving them cash at the end of the day and then writing that cash off as a loss.

[Allybeboba]

Which can be obtained a number of ways. Farm owners can get "seasonal" workers from south of the border, legally, it's just more expensive to do so because they have to pay them and treat them like legal workers, go through government paperwork and all that. There are some companies who will do this for you, but again there's an added cost because you're not just giving them cash at the end of the day and then writing that cash off as a loss.

Beat me to it!
The easiest way is to simply get a staffing agency to care of all the " paperwork "

[TITAN308]

Well of course people still don't want to do it when they can get free stuff from the government and sit in the A/C while doing it.

We've reached a part in society where showing proof of attempting to get work to continue to get welfare programs is "unreasonable".

[Sunseeker]

And specifically is it the H2-A "Temporary Agricultural Work Visa" found here: https://www.uscis.gov/working-united...ltural-workers

Again, it's a big pile of paperwork and it can take a lot of time, but for people who keep their papers in order and keep their nose clean, it can result in very regular seasonal work.

If we want to make migration more efficient, we need to make our immigration process smoother so that people who do it right become citizens and people who don't get the boot faster. There's no reason that hard working folks who want to become American should have to wait upwards of a decade to do so. If we did that we wouldn't need H1B or H2A visa programs. We could simply recruit the people we need, make them into Americans in a jiffy and keep them.

But we all well know that the H1B and H2A programs don't serve Americans. They serve corporate interests. They're designed to import cheap foreign labor that can be treated as cheap foreign labor and disposed of at a whim instead of supporting the people already here or the people who want to stay here.

[Lady Dragonheart]

If it forces more automation, then I am for it.

[Sodia]

Obviously, if Americans still aren't taking the jobs, the pay is insufficient to keep up with the cost of living in the area.

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But of course, Capitalism will fix this. Wages will continue to rise until firms can attract workers. That how it works right? Capitalism will save us all?

Right?

/tap /tap

Is this thing on?

Any solutions??You know i'm from Eastern Europe , born in 70s ... I saw what socialism looks like ... And you saw shit ... Spoiled brat from rich parents /tap/tap......

[d00mGuArD]

Today, farmworkers in the state earn about $30,000 a year if they work full time — about half the overall average pay in California

There is your problem right there. Most people will not want to work in harsh conditions for half the average pay of everybody else.
In a free market, if you don't offer as much as your competition, workers will choose to work elsewhere, who would have thought

People just got used to the mentality "oooh people want decent wage? They don't accept half of what others earn??? let's import immigrants and pay them shit wage, these local guys don't want to do it"

[Rooflesstoofless]

Which can be obtained a number of ways. Farm owners can get "seasonal" workers from south of the border, legally, it's just more expensive to do so because they have to pay them and treat them like legal workers, go through government paperwork and all that. There are some companies who will do this for you, but again there's an added cost because you're not just giving them cash at the end of the day and then writing that cash off as a loss.

Right. All of which cuts into the profits these farmers want to have so most of them keep illegal hiring practices that aren't in line with state or federal employment laws. The plight these farmers are trying to claim is complete bullshit. It isn't that they can't afford to hire Americans or that people won't do the job... they are just greedy fucks who would rather keep the status quo and then use examples of "well, I tried to hire a druggy before and it didn't work out so Americans don't want the job."

Almost every company I deal with has work visa employees from South of the boarder. There is definitely a legal way to go about doing what you say. Many of these farmers are faced with the dilemma of hiring legally and living like normal people or hiring illegally and living like Kardashians.

[Sunseeker]

Right. All of which cuts into the profits these farmers want to have so most of them keep illegal hiring practices that aren't in line with state or federal employment laws. The plight these farmers are trying to claim is complete bullshit. It isn't that they can't afford to hire Americans or that people won't do the job... they are just greedy fucks who would rather keep the status quo and then use examples of "well, I tried to hire a druggy before and it didn't work out so Americans don't want the job."

Almost every company I deal with has work visa employees from South of the boarder. There is definitely a legal way to go about doing what you say. Many of these farmers are faced with the dilemma of hiring legally and living like normal people or hiring illegally and living like Kardashians.

Yep. Worked in construction for several years and I hear ya. The companies making millions? They're the ones picking up those early-morning street corners full of workers. The companies doing it legally? Well they live like the rest of us: job to job, paycheck to paycheck.