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Originally Posted by Gemini Cricket
(Tangent: In fact, I spoke with a school teacher in Carmel about this. I told her that if I were running her school, I'd make it a requirement for the kids to do one day of labor in one of these fields to see how hard it actually is. She thought it was a good idea.)
Yes, they take the job of someone American and legal who could do it. But I find it hard to believe that there are stacks of applications that were overlooked at the foreman's desk. If these guys didn't pick these crops, the business would take itself to South America and veggies would have to be shipped over here. I think that's worse for our country.
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Growing up in Southwest Washington strawberries were the big crop and they came to harvest just as school got out for the summer. Pretty much every kid I knew put in time at the fields getting their $.50 per flat and finding out just how hard the work was. I think I was 13 the first time my mom woke me up at 6 a.m. and dragged me out the strawberry fields.
GC, at what point do you think our minimum wage laws, workplace protection laws, and employee right laws should be discarded to prevent an industry from leaving the country? Where we will then protest the corporations use of underpaid foreign labor without the basic protections we grant in the United States? And did you ever think you'd end up on the same side of an issue as evil corporations?