The random political thoughts thread (Part Deux)

[Gemini Cricket]

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

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.

I think that's cool.

Originally Posted by Alex Stroup

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?

I don't think those things should be compromised to prevent someone from leaving. I think it would be up to the consumer to see if they'd put up with that kind of thing. They don't seem to mind going to Wal*Mart to buy their cheap clothes and lawn furniture, they probably wouldn't mind if Earthbound Farms moved their crops to South America...
I don't know if I'm on the side of big corporations. But I do see your point. I keep thinking that these people have to work somewhere. Ideally, if they got here the right way things would be perfect. However, we enabled them to be here by being shoddy with our border security. So what happens next? They work nowhere and starve. Then you'd have the thieves and rapists. There needs to be some inbetween place for these people. There isn't.