UFW union encourages citizens to become farmworkers, 'Take Our Jobs'

Source: McClatchy-Tribune News Service

The United Farm Workers union -- in a tongue-and-cheek appeal -- is encouraging U.S. citizens and legal residents to become farmworkers.

The union is launching a campaign called "Take Our Jobs" as a way to bring attention to the nation's fractured immigration policies.

...

"I know they are using a little bit of humor, but there is a definite message there," said Manuel Cunha, president of the Fresno, Calif.-based Nisei Farmers League. "You have to have a legal workforce in agriculture."

Cunha's group has joined with the UFW to support the federal AgJOBS legislation that sits in the Senate. The bill aims to provide a legal and stable work force by giving more than 1 million undocumented farmworkers a path to legalization while continuing to work in farming.


Read more: http://www.cleveland.com/nation/index.ssf/2010/06/ufw_union_ads_encourage_citize.html

The ONLY reason farmers use Illegal workers vs: H2B Visa workers is because the farmer does not have to pay for the workers lodging, medical, transportation, insurance, tools, ect, ect ect.....

"Ya We demand the right to Work for Less Money"

Now that is a Union I can get behind

I would really hope this brings attention to the hypocrisy of the immigration issue. The same folks who are banging the drum for deportation and sealing the border are the same ones hiring undocumented nannys and landscapers for CHEAP labor.

The H-2B temporary foreign worker program allows employers to hire workers from other countries on temporary work permits to fill nonagricultural jobs that last less than one year.

I don't see anything wrong with training unemployed Americans to start a new career as farm workers.

Poles and Italians working in the steel mills were paid half of what "real Americans" were paid in the early twentieth century. Now the descendants of those immigrants want to deport these immigrants. Sheesh. No one ever learns. Think of how revenues would go up if immigrants were paid fairly. We would be able to afford new energy technology, good education, good health care.

I have.... briefly. Hardest fucking work on earth. Mind-numbing. Backbreaking. Repetitive. Awful.

Not only that, but some of that mind-numbing, backbreaking work is skilled. If you don't cut the asparagus correctly, it fucks up the plants. If you don't prune the grape vines properly, it fucks up the vines. Get the picture?

Most of us couldn't do the jobs. For virtually any wage.

He picked watermelons, melons and strawberries.

His back got so fucked after the second summer that he had to give up his wrestling scholarship.

because there wasn't much money at home. It wasn't the worst thing I've ever done. Cleaning bathrooms at a resort attraction and at a McD's was far worse. Working fries at McD's was also nasty back then. I hated the heat and the greasy steam.

Lots of my friends used to pick asparagus and harvest Christmas trees, too. I had too many duties around the house to be able to work before and after school during the school year, but I heard that the asparagus wasn't pleasant.

I'm of northern European extraction and the friends to whom I refer are as well.

Last year, there were white folks up in my home area looking for agricultural jobs. I don't know if they got hired, but there they were, looking for work.

Mostly picking peaches, which is about as crappy as it gets (that itchy fuzz gets EVERYWHERE).

Most white people actually can't get these jobs nowadays. The crew leaders are usually hispanic, and they don't want to have to shout their orders twice (once in English, and once in Spanish). They also don't want people who can't speak Spanish and therefore can't communicate with their co-workers.

I have an enormous amount of respect for farmworkers, but I also agree with Cesar Chavez when he said that the unbridled immigration of foreign farmworkers only benefits landowners, while undermining wages and unionization efforts of the farmworkers themselves. Most people forget this nowadays, but in the 1960's and 1970's under Cesar Chavez, the UFW was one of the most anti-immigrant groups in America. They even opposed legal immigration for farmworkers, preferring to protect the economic interests of domestic-born hispanic farmworkers. I don't agree with him that far, but I do believe that the constant importation of undocumented workers undermines wages for domestic farmworkers.

I may have misspoken. It's not that they won't hire whites, but that they won't hire people who don't speak Spanish. The fact that most whites don't speak Spanish is really incidental. They probably would hire a willing white worker if he spoke the language.

I don't have a problem with the practice, and it's really no different than businesses refusing to hire workers who don't speak English, or who speak it poorly. Most companies want workers that speak the common language of the workplace, so those workers can understand instructions and communicate with their co-workers. It just happens that in farming, the "language of the workplace" has been almost exclusively Spanish for the past 15 years or so. If you can't speak it, they don't want you.

for a good wage, and with proper work conditions that treat workers humanely, quite a few people would be willing to do these jobs. The irony is that it is precisely because the farmers hire illegal workers that they can treat them like shit. Their anger should be at the farm owners and corporations.

Even if they got their wish and had amnesty granted for all current workers and got better wages and work conditions for it, which is what they're aiming for... guess what? More illegal labor would just come across the border and be hired for cheaper than the now legalized workforce. And then these same people would be screaming "they toook our JOOOOOOBS!" And the irony and hypocrsiy will be complete.

Hardest work on earth...negative..

Hard work- true

I would say it compares to a roofer in the "hardness" factor. You ever work from sun-up to sun-down loading bails of hay?

fine for the younger people, but anybody over 40 would die. I'll change that to say "most nearly anybody over 40.."

Because if illegals weren't farm workers I am pretty sure the pay and benefits would increase dramatically.

Nice way to shoot yourselves in the foot...


Oh and if all the farmworkers were made legal today they would be replaced with new illegal farmworkers tomorrow.

Until then, you could just take an equal amount to whatever you pay and send it in as a contribution to the union?

And food in the United States is to cheap as it is. I would rather see people earn a real living than save a few cents every week.

Your arguement is as old as time. (Think of the cotton prices if we got rid of slavery) and is as morally bankrupt now as it was then.

I live in Portland, Oregon. We have a higher minimum wage than national, and our restaurant servers work for minimum + tips, rather than the stunted wages tip earners get elsewhere. We also have lots of restaurants and food outlets that specialize in local food sources, fair trade, and fair and ethical work practices. (We take it to interesting extremes here, such as vegan, pro-dancer..... strip clubs). Guess what? It's a lot more expensive (from a basic goods and lifestyle purchases standpoint) to eat, and live, this way.

You point about slavery and cotton is correct, cotton became much more expensive, and the hard question people have to ask themselves is if they're really willing to adjust their lifestyles, and pocketbooks, to match their moral stances. Can they stop shopping at Wal-Mart? Can they stop eating out-of-season foods? Can they stop eating factory farm foods? Can they stop buying factory bread, and switch to artisan bread? Can they switch to co-op businesses, and/or businesses with socially responsible policies?

Or will they rail about the injustice in the system without realizing that being cheap hyper-consumers is part of the whole problem?

employment and living wages.

Now don't get me wrong I to laugh at the $8 organic tomato that some people buy. But for ordinary foodstuffs we need to raise the bar.

America has too much stuff. It is time prices reflected all the social costs that go into making the product.

It's that it is not locally produced stuff.

Finding a local orange in Phoenix, AZ and Orlando, Florida are two totally different things....

(I'm working on cultivating habaneo peppers in my garden in a cold, humid, climate... not easy)

Blueberries are in but I couldn't find any cherries.

Store cherries, sweet or sour, are about the most worthless, overpriced produce in the store counting everything that comes in over the year. Totally, totally worthless.

No citrus grows in the mid-Atlantic, as far as I know.

:P

I think I'm the only person in Plano TX with not only a peach try on the side yard, but a pear and apricot in the front :)

the Farmer's Market near me and get produce way the heck cheaper than at the local mega grocery stores. And the stuff is so fresh. You walk into the produce section and you are nearly assaulted by the bright colors of the peppers (3 for $1) and zucchinis (88 cents each). They have whole seedless watermelons right now for about $1.99. Grocery store has them ON SALE for $3.99. I love going there each week.

Can I stop shopping at Wal-Mart?

Yes...Haven't been in a Wal-Mart in 15 years.

Can I stop eating out of season foods?

No...But I am willing to pay a premium.

Can I stop eating factory-farm foods?

If given a choice...I'm willing and often do pay the premium.

Can I stop buying factory farm bread and buy artisan bread?

Yes...Been doing it for years and the artisan bread price is comparable.

Can I switch to co-op businesses, and or businesses with socially responsible policies?

Yes...Fired all the banks years ago, use credit unions...Just give me the option.

once they are in, they can ask for a 25/hour pay or a 401k

why would they be with all that illegal labor out there?

and full of blisters

A union that has illegal labor in it... wow what a great union. A union that jabs at the unemployed citizens rather than at the corporations that pay them shit. Oh, how I hope they become legalized, get better pay and work conditions, then have more illegal labor come in and take their jobs for cheap. THAT would be just too much.

has everybody fall into the believe that during an economic crisis is better not to work than to work for low wages?

it's basically a race to the bottom. Most of the unemployed are looking for jobs to replace their old paychecks. I suppose if they can't find anything, they should just apply for whatever they can. They probably aren't looking to go into a work field that is dominated by illegal labor though. And in all honesty, those employers don't want them.

...was established to allow students to help with the harvest. It would be something to see all the college students doing field work to help fund their education. It gives me a chuckle, thinking about it. 105 degrees and ten hours of manual labor, six days a week... good for the soul, hard on the back. After a summer of that, I dare them to call it unskilled labor.

I'd like to see the records of how and where ag jobs were advertised, if they are.

I've never seen them in my home town paper nor in the paper that serves a dead industrial area to the south.

Nonetheless, as I've pointed out in several of these threads, white folks were in my area last summer looking for ag jobs. The economy's rough out there.