I believe there was similar stuff being discussed a few years ago with tomatoes where it was undocumented immigrants being treated similarly. Presumably they're all samples from a big slurry of exploitation.
Yeah, it's no worse than other horrible farm conditions that I've heard about before, and in Florida. I can't figure out anything that makes it different from ongoing abuses of migrant workers, exactly, but it seemed newly disturbing, somehow.
Because it isn't something that can be primarily blamed on our horrible immigration policy.
IIRC, it was the John Sayles movie Honeydripper that successfully dramatized for me the phenomenon of small-town law enforcement criminalizing walking/breathing (as "vagrancy") in order to conscript agricultural labor for large landowners.
It's astonishing how far our notions of criminals have shifted in the past 40 years. I feel as though the mainstream of criminal justice policy discussions in the '70s totally accepted the idea that people might "pay their debt to society" and then rejoin society as full members, rather than be branded with a permanent stigma and and ostracized.
It can be blamed on the phenomenon of workers whose employment status (regardless of their citizenship status) is undocumented, though, no?
I don't know much about how seasonal farm labor is handled in terms of labor law: I vaguely think there's such a thing as "casual labor" which I understood to be people employed for a small number of hours for a limited period of time, so they don't have to be declared as actual employees.
I'm not sure I want to turn this into a law thread, but I don't see any way around the fact that the only recourse for remedy for exploited farm workers is through the law. I mean, what would it take for the 'employers' to be sued?
I assume 6.1 is pointing out that not all migrant workers are immigrants.
I thought it was pointing out that these employment sites are typically invisible to labor regulators.
And yes to 7, this is a textbook example of why we need standard rules rather than fobbing it off as torts. Does anyone other than the crazy 27% disagree with that, though? I imagine most of the labor practices involved have been formally illegal since the New Deal, or in some cases since the Anti-Peonage Act of 1867.
And yes to 7, this is a textbook example of why we need standard rules rather than fobbing it off as torts.
And why we need Attorneys General and state labor departments willing to enforce those laws.
Absolutely, and the funding to suss out violations. I would refer to a particular equine if it weren't so depressing.
Sorry I was not at all clear. 9.1 is what I meant.
11: Jeez, cut Eeyore some slack.
Does anyone other than the crazy 27% disagree with that, though?
The crazy 27% says you shouldn't have standard rules or torts.
Leaving aside ethics, I don't really understand the business model. I don't see what kind of jobs can be done by mostly older, addicted men who are recruited from homeless shelters and probably really fucking angry after a couple of weeks that wouldn't be better just not having done or that somebody paid an actual wage couldn't do for cheaper by being more efficient. It is, I'm sure, a failure of imagination on my part as I've never been a job creator, addicted to crack, or willing to live in Florida.
Neither crack nor time spent driving around homeless shelters are costless. Maybe they just need an accountant who can calculate this stuff out for them?
Neither crack nor time spent driving around homeless shelters are costless.
They're free only if you think the crack addict's time isn't worth anything.
I was thinking of the time for the person who found the workers. That guy must be paid since he is driving around in a van.
Probably a SAHM. Their time is free.
And they are likely to already have a van.
Leaving aside ethics, I don't really understand the business model.
Welcome to my world. I know zilch about farmworkers specifically, but my observation of low-wage workers in general is that an amazing number of employers are happy to put up with 300% annual turnover for a $8/hour job rather than pay $12/hour and have some stability.
There are other issues at play, but it honestly seems to boil down to that. They don't think the work is intrinsically "worth" any more than $8, and they will not pay more than $8 no matter how much it costs them.
It's kinda weird that Jacob Holdt documented all of this stuff so well 40 years ago, and yet nobody seems the least bit interested in doing anything about it.
http://www.american-pictures.com/roots/chapter-7.htm
I'm very curious whether people will be (as I suspect) less sympathetic to these guys than to the undocumented immigrants going through the same thing, but not enough to actually read newspaper comments or anything like that.
And this is the part where I say again that Mara's dad is a disenfranchised felon for failure to pay child support ($1K+ = felony here) because there's nothing like a felony conviction to help someone get a good job that will let him/her make money to support his/her kids.
Remember that in the peonage system you can charge a huge markup on food, drinks, and everything else and end up paying much less than even migrant-labor wages. Granted, I don't know how much use their bodies will be what with the alcohol and crack, but it must look great to people with the mentality described in 21.1.
Thorn:
Yes. I read some of the comments, but stopped after awhile because I couldn't bear any more of the "well, that's what happens you get addicted to crack, you lazy criminal." Comments written by non sociopaths who recognized this is a structural problem were few and far between.
I believe there was similar stuff being discussed a few years ago with tomatoes where it was undocumented immigrants being treated similarly. Presumably they're all samples from a big slurry of exploitation.
The most depressing things I've rid about this were in this book:
Nobodies: Modern American Slave Labor and the Dark Side of the New Global Economy.
I see that the book is now 5 years old and not much has changed, though there's a Moveon campaign supporting the Immokalee Worker's Coalition this year: http://ciw-online.org/
"Rid" s/b "read
And some other typos. To bed.
21
Welcome to my world. I know zilch about farmworkers specifically, but my observation of low-wage workers in general is that an amazing number of employers are happy to put up with 300% annual turnover for a $8/hour job rather than pay $12/hour and have some stability.
Well they are saving $8000+ per worker per year. I can imagine that being the profit maximizing choice even after adjusting for worker turnover costs.
21: Have you ever supervised a position that had 300% annual turnover?
I meant 29. And this is a lesson to me. I should go to bed and not feed the troll Shearer.
Have some eclairs, Shearer. Happy Mother's Day.
I admit I tend to give more credence to economists' views on the minimum wage than I should, but I am astounded that Australia has managed to maintain a $15/hour minimum wage without their economy falling apart. Fifteen dollars! That'll buy a lot of crack and Mad Dog!
30
Have you ever supervised a position that had 300% annual turnover?
No I haven't. Which gives me no solid grounds to doubt the opinion of those who have, many of whom seem to think that low wages are the way to go.
Maybe, but anybody charging only 100% interest on a loan for crack is either underestimating risk or planning on a collection method that involves a felony.
34
Maybe, but anybody charging only 100% interest on a loan for crack is either underestimating risk or planning on a collection method that involves a felony.
I was referring to fast food jobs and the like which I don't think usually involve crack loans.
As for the alleged loans to farmworkers, as I understood it, collection consisted of taking it out of their wages which doesn't sound too risky. Although I suppose that could still qualify as felonious.
fm, you're ignoring the substitution effect. At $15/hour, the lower classes switch to powder cocaine and pinot noir.
Australia is also undergoing a minerals boom. They also have weird national wage awards and stuff, from memory, although I wouldn't swear to it.
I imagine most of the labor practices involved have been formally illegal since the New Deal, or in some cases since the Anti-Peonage Act of 1867.
I'm pretty sure that selling people crack is formally illegal too.
1: Yeah, Terry Eastabrook's book Tomatoland talked about that. He specifically said that if you can't buy a local tomato you should look at hydroponics. He said that people who had tried to leave were getting shot in some places. Even in Florida they try to prosecute that when they can.
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Witt-- I think that I sent you an e-mail. That is, I sent an e-mail to an address I have which I think is yours.
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Follow up to 40. Nix that Witt. I just got your e-mail.
You know, the story in the original post closely resembles one scene in Jack Vance's "Dying Earth" books. Reality should try to resemble fantasy stories about end of civilization less.
I thought Carl Hiaasen was a satirist until i read the linked story.