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Interesting video and article about Farm Jobs and how Americans do not want them.

bullseyelqcs said:
What was it you just said about an article without all the details? Same applies with your comment. What I said was perfectly applicable if you lived in the United States, and it wouldn't have been baseless were that the case.
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I said "where I live" in my post to another. You could have easily asked where I live.
 
Individual said:
I said "where I live" in my post to another. You could have easily asked where I live.
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That is true.

That stated, I find it ironic that in this very thread you questioned the point of an article that didn't provide all the details, and then get upset because an assumption was made about you because you left out all the details.

What gives?
 
bullseyelqcs said:
The idea that it should be okay for a company not to pay a living wage. Again, the fact that you live elsewhere kinda changes that, but not by much.
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I'm not a company, simply a retired American living pretty much the same life style as those I live among.
Why should I pay more than the normal wage, which happens to be more than a living wage where I live?
 
bullseyelqcs said:
That is true.

That stated, I find it ironic that in this very thread you questioned the point of an article that didn't provide all the details, and then get upset because an assumption was made about you because you left out all the details.

What gives?
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Quite a difference, as I am available to fill in the details when questions arise, while the person who wrote the article is not.
 
Individual said:
I'm not a company, simply a retired American living pretty much the same life style as those I live among.
Why should I pay more than the normal wage, which happens to be more than a living wage where I live?
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Again, this case is the same as every other case. One thing matters more than almost anything else.....location, location, location.

I just got back from a trip to Cancun. We own a timeshare down there. I spent some time talking to the resort workers, and came to find out that thier base pay amounts to just over $5 a day. Sure, they get tips, but that **** wouldn't fly on this side of the border. Hell, for them to get the $9 a day you are talking about would be an 80% increase in pay.

All that said, again, the basis of my original statement was an assumption we were talking about that kind of pay here stateside.
 
Individual said:
Quite a difference, as I am available to fill in the details when questions arise, while the person who wrote the article is not.
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To be fair, if you wanted to, I'm sure you could have emailed them to find out that answer, just as I responded to your post.

Just saying.
 
bullseyelqcs said:
To be fair, if you wanted to, I'm sure you could have emailed them to find out that answer, just as I responded to your post.

Just saying.
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I probably could have hopped on a plane and flew to where the writer lived/worked, and asked questions too.
Just saying.
 
bullseyelqcs said:
Again, this case is the same as every other case. One thing matters more than almost anything else.....location, location, location.

I just got back from a trip to Cancun. We own a timeshare down there. I spent some time talking to the resort workers, and came to find out that thier base pay amounts to just over $5 a day. Sure, they get tips, but that **** wouldn't fly on this side of the border. Hell, for them to get the $9 a day you are talking about would be an 80% increase in pay.

All that said, again, the basis of my original statement was an assumption we were talking about that kind of pay here stateside.
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I agree, if there is no work or no jobs available paying what you feel you need you might need to relocate.

In a live conversation, assumptions tend to be more like accusations, although they may play well to the audience.
 
Luckyone said:
Here is a video of a farm owner in Minnesota and the problems he has had trying to get people to fill the job positions that he is offering.

He is offering $12 an hour in pay (decent for a peon job) and all the white Americans that have applied have said it is not something they want to do. It is "too hard" for them.

What is he to do if Americans don't want the job?

This is how hard it is to find workers for a dairy farm - CNN Video
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Of course they don't want them!!!

We have welfare
 
Barnacle said:
Legal immigrants like Somalis and Latinos didn't even apply?!? In that case, tell the farmer to shut down his business. It'll be picked up by larger co-ops and the farmer can always apply for "re-education" programs through the government. Hillary said it's easy-peasy.
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Why don't you simply watch the video and if necessary, contact the man and make him aware of what you know and he doesn't. I am sure you know more about how to run a dairy farm in Minnesota than he does..
 
trixare4kids said:
A "peon job"?

Oh the humanity!

These jobs are stepping stone jobs. Bump the pay a bit and the employers will get the workers who are both legally here, and free to apply
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Have you ever owned a company?
 
jamesrage said:
12 dollars an hour for a physically demanding job with no chance of advancement is really low pay. If the farmer ups the pay enough he will find American citizens to do that job.
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Ever owned a company?

The first thing about making a company successful is getting business and getting business means you have to be competitive in price because if you are more expensive than your neighbor, guess what? You fail.

The other thing you also need to understand is that most Americans are inured to easier jobs that pay more or at least are easier and even if you pay higher wages, you will find it difficult to find people that are willing to do the job, especially if it is a tough job. In addition, if they decide to do the job, they are not likely to do a good job since they are not accustomed to working so hard.

The difference that exists between Americans and those of other nations is that in other nations children have to work physically from the time they are small children and they are inured to work hard from the start, whereas in the U.S. most children are protected while they are children and when they get to a working age, hard physical labor is not something they want to do, especially when there are other jobs that pay the same (or more) available. Remember that our unemployment rate is at an big low where the amount of people looking for jobs gives the advantage to the worker and not to the people offering jobs.

As such, your comment is strongly disinformed.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
That does not seem to be what you are telling them (or us) - you seem to be saying that US 'farmers' should be permitted to use third world labor simply to avoid paying wages/benefits sufficient to attract and retain US workers with other employment options.
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Unfortunately, the reality is that American workers are soft (not all that willing to do hard work) and third world country people are accustomed to do hard work given that from the moment they are born they are starving. That is one of the negatives involved in nations that are Capitalistic and that key on making money the easy way than working for a living.
 
Luckyone said:
Here is a video of a farm owner in Minnesota and the problems he has had trying to get people to fill the job positions that he is offering.

He is offering $12 an hour in pay (decent for a peon job) and all the white Americans that have applied have said it is not something they want to do. It is "too hard" for them.

What is he to do if Americans don't want the job?

This is how hard it is to find workers for a dairy farm - CNN Video
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Interesting parallel; a few years ago BBC TV ran a documentary on immigration and interviewed the owner of a fish processing factory in the north of England. When asked why his workforce was predominantly Polish and Lithuanian, he replied that although those jobs were advertised locally, no local people wanted them despite them being relatively well paid. He also commented that his foreign workers were diligent, reliable and hard-working. Not something he could say about the locals.
He said he would have preferred to employ locals, being a community-oriented sort of chap, but he had a business to run and if the locals didn't want to work...
 
Chomsky said:
I have great respect for independent proprietor-owned farmers. I admire their self-reliant individualism, and their ability to make a living off the land. And I'm somewhat aware of the variables involved.

But I'm attempting to do objective economic analysis. And during normal times in a free-market environment, if our farmer can't get adequate workers at 12 bucks an hour, he needs to raise his wages or provide other benefits and/or conditions & terms. If he can't do that within his cost structure, his business model is simply not working for him.

I'm not making a value judgement here, but simply stating economic principles. Pay well enough, you'll get workers. I know more than a few workers that dislike their jobs/employers/employees/bosses, but they do a reasonable job for an extended period because they get paid well enough that it's worth sticking around for awhile. That's life.
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Unfortunately the reality of our farming industry is that it is in problems overall (not just one farmer in Minnesota) and that is not something that can be solved by any farmer:

The U.S. economy has experienced more than 100 months of expansion, but don't expect to see the country's farmers celebrating. Caught in a six-year slump, they're struggling economically as robust crop yields, driven by advances in technology, have slashed prices -- and farm incomes.

Farmers' net income has tumbled 40 percent since the 2013 high, according to a report by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. And with 20 percent of commodities sold overseas, the strong dollar and recent tariffs by the Trump administration have further dampened sales.
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and.......

While farmland may stretch far and wide, farmers and ranchers themselves make up just 1.3% of the employed US population, totaling around 2.6 million people.

Today, there are about 2 million farms in operation in the US, a steep decline from 1935, when the number of farms peaked at nearly 7 million.

Meanwhile, back in 1840, workers in the agriculture industry made up 70% of the American workforce.
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Individual said:
I live abroad, the U.S. Federal minimum wage does not apply. And that would be $50 for 40 hours, or about $9/day.
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I suspected that must be the case - which is why I bolded the "Where I live" preamble of your reply.
 
Checkerboard Strangler said:
Sorry but having married into a farm family (my first marriage) I am calling BS, PARTIAL BS.

1. He advertised on Craigslist? HAHAHAHA OMG!
Here is the Craigslist Help Wanted "General Labor" page from St. Cloud MN, which is where he most likely placed his ad...
Take a look at the kinds of JOBS being offered.

2. There are only THREE "FARM HELP" ads and I bet this ad right here is likely HIS ad:

Farm help - general labor - job employment

3. Farmers don't generally hire off Craigslist, is my point. Three farm operators are asking for help but what MOST farmers do is go into town and put up notices on the board at the local feed stores. That's where FARMER types are likely to go if they're looking to get hired on a farm.
That's the way it is, that's the way it's always been.

He says he interviewed twenty-five people. I'm betting that most of them were from St. Cloud, a city of 70 thousand people, most of whom normally work in finance, medical/healthcare, bus and truck/trailer assembly & manufacturing, warehousing and distribution and Electrolux. (the vacuum cleaner company)
The Saint Cloud VA Medical Center also employs 1300 people.

I'm betting most of those St. Cloud kids have never worked on a farm in their lives.

That doesn't discount his point or the point of the story but the point being overlooked is, American employers who use unskilled labor have been addicted to cheap illegal immigrant labor for DECADES. I don't just mean in the last ten years, I'm saying they've been addicted to it for fifty years.

There are plenty of local born and bred American people who WILL do this hard work, but I suspect most of those people are already employed on all the other farms in the surrounding area and don't want to leave their present jobs. Minnesota's farming business is and always has been very robust and there has always been a lot of demand for extra help up there.
Minnesota's dairy industry is every bit as legendary as Wisconsin's (America's Dairyland)
And from the looks of it Pat Lunemann is probably the top milk producer in the state or close to it, so I imagine his dairy farm is probably enormous.

And it sounds like there is more to the story, because I wager not only is he short on help due to the immigration situation, I bet he is perennially short of help all year round. And if he is advertising on Craigslist, he must be desperate.
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See post #66 and give me your comment after reading those 2 articles
 
Oborosen said:
I have a job, and I've already earned my stripes doing hard labor. By working on a farm and helping raise cattle since I was 12. If they don't want to make money, then they just don't have the drive to have a job.
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Good for you. What percentage of people in the United States grew up on a farm raising cattle from age 12? I would say you are the exception and not the norm!m You got accustomed to hard work from an early age. What percentage of the population had the same growing up experiences that you had where you were doing hard work at age 12?

How knowledgeable are you for working as a farm lawyer or an agricultural analyst who earn in excess of $100,000 a year. If I was a young man, I would not look to work as a laborer for $12 an hour but step up to the more lucrative jobs in the industry. Nonetheless, if everyone does that, who is there to toil the fields or milk the cows.
 
Individual said:
Why would someone apply for a job they have no intent of taking?
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One possibility is to satisfy the "job contact" requirement to continue receiving UI benefits. Other possibilities include that the help wanted ad did not include the wage offered, lack of promotional opportunity or work schedule.
 
trixare4kids said:
A "peon job"?

Oh the humanity!

These jobs are stepping stone jobs. Bump the pay a bit and the employers will get the workers who are both legally here, and free to apply
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Bump the pay up? How much do you think the cost of farm produce would increase as a result? Entitled, spoiled Americans don't want to do hard, honest, manual work for low wages, so the farmer will employ those who do and will.
 
Luther said:
Of course they don't want them!!!

We have welfare
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Yeah we do, but then again we also have a soft society where hard work is not instilled into our children at an early age. Capitalism is all about easy and big money. Change the system where you show children they have to work to earn a living and the need for Welfare will go away. Show them (through TV and Media) how many people got rich by coming up with a new idea, a new way of doing things and never had to do a day's work and what you end up with is lots of people that failed and had to go on welfare to live

It all begins with education and by not pushing Capitalism's benefits from an early age. Children learn what they are taught.
 
Luckyone said:
Here is a video of a farm owner in Minnesota and the problems he has had trying to get people to fill the job positions that he is offering.

He is offering $12 an hour in pay (decent for a peon job) and all the white Americans that have applied have said it is not something they want to do. It is "too hard" for them.

What is he to do if Americans don't want the job?

This is how hard it is to find workers for a dairy farm - CNN Video
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He should hire black Americans. Problem solved. Right?
 
Luckyone said:
Here is a video of a farm owner in Minnesota and the problems he has had trying to get people to fill the job positions that he is offering.

He is offering $12 an hour in pay (decent for a peon job) and all the white Americans that have applied have said it is not something they want to do. It is "too hard" for them.

What is he to do if Americans don't want the job?

This is how hard it is to find workers for a dairy farm - CNN Video
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Make a better offer of course or recruit people from other areas of the country who cant get there on their own. Though Ive got no problem with mexicans filling those jobs if they come here legally and follow the same labor laws we all have to. I dont blame someone for choosing to flip burgers for $15 an hour instead.
 
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