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We Don't Need Immigrants After All

Started by alfred russel, June 24, 2011, 09:31:59 AM

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alfred russel

The state of Georgia seems to have figured it out. Kick out the illegal immigrants, and let Americans do their jobs! It seems that there were a lack of applicants for some of them (after all, 90% of Americans who want jobs have them), so the governor figured out the solution: people just out of prison!

Check out the victory for Americans below:

Quote
Ga. puts probationers to work harvesting crops

It's 3:25 p.m. in a dusty cucumber field in south Georgia. A knot of criminal offenders who spent seven hours in the sun harvesting buckets of vegetables by hand have decided they're calling it quits — exactly as crew leader Benito Mendez predicted in the morning.

Unless the cucumbers come off the vine soon, they will become engorged with seeds, making them unsellable. Mendez's crew of Mexican and Guatemalan workers will keep harvesting until 6 p.m., maybe longer. Not so for the men participating in a new state-run program aimed at replacing the Latino migrants Georgia farmers say they've lost to a new immigration crackdown with unemployed probationers.

"Tired. The heat," said 33-year-old Tavares Jones, who left early and was walking down a dirt road toward a ride home. He promised Mendez he'd return the next morning. "It's hard work out here."

Mendez urged another man to stay. "I need you today," he said. "These cucumbers not going to wait until tomorrow."

Republican Gov. Nathan Deal started the experiment after farmers publicly complained they couldn't find enough workers to harvest labor-intensive crops such as cucumbers and berries because Latino workers — including many illegal immigrants — refused to show up, even when offered one-time or weekly bonuses. One crew who previously worked for Mendez told him they wouldn't come to Georgia for fear of risking deportation.

Farmers told state authorities in an unscientific survey that they had more than 11,000 unfilled agriculture jobs, although it's not clear how that compares to prior years or whether the shortage can be blamed on the new law.

For more than a week, the state's probation officers have encouraged their unemployed offenders to consider taking field jobs. While most offenders are required to work while on probation, statistics show they have a hard time finding jobs. Georgia's unemployment rate is nearly 10 percent, but correction officials say among the state's 103,000 probationers, it's about 15 percent. Still, offenders can turn down jobs they consider unsuitable, and harvesting is physically demanding.

The first batch of probationers started work last week at a farm owned by Dick Minor, president of the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association. In the coming days, more farmers could join the program.

So far, the experiment at Minor's farm is yielding mixed results. On the first two days, all the probationers quit by mid-afternoon, said Mendez, one of two crew leaders at Minor's farm.

"Those guys out here weren't out there 30 minutes and they got the bucket and just threw them in the air and say, `Bonk this, I ain't with this, I can't do this,'" said Jermond Powell, a 33-year-old probationer. "They just left, took off across the field walking."

Mendez put the probationers to the test last Wednesday, assigning them to fill one truck and a Latino crew to a second truck. The Latinos picked six truckloads of cucumbers compared to one truckload and four bins for the probationers.

"It's not going to work," Mendez said. "No way. If I'm going to depend on the probation people, I'm never going to get the crops up."

Conditions in the field are bruising, and the probationers didn't seem to know what to expect. Cucumber plants hug the ground, forcing the workers to bend over, push aside the large leaves and pull them from the vine. Unlike the Mexican and Guatemalan workers, the probationers didn't wear gloves to protect their hands from the small but prickly thorns on the vines and sandpaper-rough leaves.

The harvesters carried filled buckets on their shoulders to a nearby flatbed truck and hoisted them up to a dumper, who tossed the vegetables into a bin.

Temperatures hovered in the low 90s with heavy humidity Thursday, but taking off a shirt to relieve the heat invited a blistering sunburn. Tiny gnats flew into workers' eyes and ears. One experienced Latino worker carried a machete that he used to dispatch a rattlesnake found in the fields.

By law, each worker must earn minimum wage, or $7.25 an hour. But there's an incentive system. Harvesters get a green ticket worth 50 cents every time they dump a bucket of cucumbers. If they collect more than 15 tickets an hour, they can beat minimum wage.

The Latino workers moved furiously Thursday for the extra pay.

Jose Ranye, 37, bragged he's the best picker in Americus, the largest community near the farm. His whirling hands filled one bucket in 25 seconds. He said he dumped about 200 buckets of cucumbers before lunch, meaning he earned roughly $20 an hour. He expected to double his tickets before the end of the day.

None of the probationers could keep pace. Pay records showed the best filled only 134 buckets a day, and some as little as 20. They lingered at the water cooler behind the truck, sat on overturned red buckets for smoke breaks and stopped working to take cell phone calls. They also griped that the Latinos received more tickets per bucket than they did, an accusation that appeared unfounded.


Robert Dawson, 24, was on his fourth day of fieldwork. On probation for commercial burglary, he said the governor's idea was a good one and long overdue. He said farmers were at least partially to blame if they're experiencing a labor shortage because they hired illegal immigrants.

"I feel like they should have gone and hired us first before they even hired them," he said in the morning. "You pay us right and we'll get out here and work. If you don't want to pay us nothing and we're out here in this hot heat, 100-and-some degree weather, it ain't gonna last."

By the afternoon, Dawson had sweated through his shirts, and his steps had become labored. His arms and back were sore, but he continued to work after other probationers had quit or were sitting under the shade of the truck. In a quiet sign of mercy, a Latino supervisor helped Dawson fill his bucket and walked it to the truck.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110622/ap_on_re_us/us_food_and_farm_probation_harvesters?bouchon=524,ga
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.

There's a fine line between salvation and drinking poison in the jungle.

I'm embarrassed. I've been making the mistake of associating with you. It won't happen again. :)
-garbon, February 23, 2014

HVC

criminals aren't hard workers? who knew?!?
Being lazy is bad; unless you still get what you want, then it's called "patience".
Hubris must be punished. Severely.

Martinus

Georgia is a dump. Russia should just conquer it.

Caliga

Quote from: HVC on June 24, 2011, 11:38:57 AM
criminals aren't hard workers? who knew?!?
The problem is that they lack the proper motivation.  "Do this or you'll be executed" is the proper persuasive word track.
0 Ed Anger Disapproval Points

Mr.Penguin

Quote from: Caliga on June 24, 2011, 12:35:09 PM
Quote from: HVC on June 24, 2011, 11:38:57 AM
criminals aren't hard workers? who knew?!?
The problem is that they lack the proper motivation.  "Do this or you'll be executed" is the proper persuasive word track.

What, no use of the whip?...
Real men drag their Guns into position

Spell check is for losers

Caliga

0 Ed Anger Disapproval Points

Habbaku

They took our jerbs and we took 'em back.  It just turns out we didn't want the jerbs after all.  :(
The medievals were only too right in taking nolo episcopari as the best reason a man could give to others for making him a bishop. Give me a king whose chief interest in life is stamps, railways, or race-horses; and who has the power to sack his Vizier (or whatever you care to call him) if he does not like the cut of his trousers.

Government is an abstract noun meaning the art and process of governing and it should be an offence to write it with a capital G or so as to refer to people.

-J. R. R. Tolkien

11B4V

Quote from: Martinus on June 24, 2011, 12:31:10 PM
Georgia is a dump. Russia should just conquer it.

Actually it"s not that bad.
"there's a long tradition of insulting people we disagree with here, and I'll be damned if I listen to your entreaties otherwise."-OVB

"Obviously not a Berkut-commanded armored column.  They're not all brewing."- CdM

"We've reached one of our phase lines after the firefight and it smells bad—meaning it's a little bit suspicious... Could be an amb—".

DontSayBanana

Quote from: Habbaku on June 24, 2011, 01:15:41 PM
They took our jerbs and we took 'em back.  It just turns out we didn't want the jerbs after all.  :(

Some people should really have looked at the performance of: telemarketing call centers (quite a few, at least in NJ, have a significant portion of employees that are parolees, probationers, or in halfway houses because of tax credits).
Experience bij!

Eddie Teach

Quote from: alfred russel on June 24, 2011, 09:31:59 AM
Mendez urged another man to stay. "I need you today," he said. "These cucumbers not going to wait until tomorrow."

If the cucumbers are in such a hurry, they can always pick themselves.  :hmm:
To sleep, perchance to dream. But in that sleep of death, what dreams may come?

Faeelin

Wait, what percentage of the cost of food comes from labor costs?