Alabama Immigration Law: Dirty Jobs Are Available But Americans Won't Fill Them

MSNBC:

Skinning, gutting, and cutting up catfish is not easy or pleasant work. No one knows this better than Randy Rhodes, president of Harvest Select, which has a processing plant in impoverished Uniontown, Ala. For years, Rhodes has had trouble finding Americans willing to grab a knife and stand 10 or more hours a day in a cold, wet room for minimum wage and skimpy benefits.

Read the whole story: MSNBC

Comments

[Count of Anjou]

02:45 PM on 12/01/2011

"Dirty Jobs Are Available But Americans Won't Fill Them"

Well that's why we NEED WELFARE REFORM. Anyone with employment opportunites should be required to report them to the government, which would maintain an employment database. Anyone seeking any form of government assistance should then be required to accept any job for which they are qualified, within a 50 mile radius of their home. Failure to do so would DISQUALIFY them for government assistance. Problem solved.

[movingman64]

10:26 PM on 11/15/2011

I cannot remember the last time I passed a citrus field and saw white people out there working!!!!!

[battlinbob]

10:15 AM on 11/22/2011

Nor black!

[movingman64]

12:08 PM on 11/22/2011

well, even in the 70's I did see some blacks, but in the last 25 or so years I only see Mexican workers.

[keithdengenis]

01:58 PM on 11/15/2011

"Let 'The Market' determine the fair value of labor..." is the common refrain, from the American Political Right.

I'm not holding my breath. The "Plantation System Mentality" is so ingrained in the U.S. South, property owners/farmers would sooner let their crops rot on the ground than pay fair market labor rates.

[mjtaylor22]

12:32 PM on 11/15/2011

i shucked corn one summer in college for about one dam week... the convenience store paid more on the midnight to 7 am shift and i got to sit in Air conditioning

[Yep1]

12:16 PM on 11/15/2011

Grab the occupy wall street crowd,send them to Alabama and say here is the jobs you have been wanting!!!!

[rw302361]

01:28 PM on 11/15/2011

grab your butt and send it there

[Yep1]

03:49 PM on 11/15/2011

Sorry, I work every day, do not need to go there.

[Norski]

10:51 AM on 11/15/2011

Farm Worker Wages make a great example of why illegal immigration hurts. Farm Workers top the Pew Center list of occupations most affected by Illegal Immigration. Per Pew data 25% of this workforce is made up of Illegal Immigrants. According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, Farm Workers earn a median wage of $8.64 per hour. Construction Laborers who work equally hard with comparable skills but they earn median wages between $11.23 and $13.19 per hour. The lowest skilled Loggers earn a median wage of $14.66 per hour. Even Parking Lot Attendants have higher median wages than Farm Laborers at $9.04 per hour.

The reason they may have a transitory problem finding Farm Workers in Alabama is people are making the logical choice that being a Parking Lot Attendant or staying on Welfare is more lucrative that working as a Farm Laborer. The sad part is even if farm wages increased to the level of Laborers and Loggers, to a median wage of $13.50 per hour, the cost of farm labor is only 7% of the cost of food. The result would be a 4.5% increase in food prices. The average American household currently spends about $370 per year on fruits and vegetables. Thus an increase to a living wage would cost the average American Household less than $17 per year. Not exactly the food disaster claimed by Illegal Immigrant Supporters. And stopping the exploitation of Illegal Immigrants makes us better off morally.

[DaddyFiles]

10:37 AM on 11/15/2011

This is pretty timely since Salary.com just interviewed Mike Rowe, host of TV's Dirty Jobs, about this very topic. Listen to what he had to say here and check out a list of 11 High-Paying Blue Collar Jobs.

http://www.salary.com/Articles/ArticleDetail.asp?part=par4443

[pwildchild444]

10:30 AM on 11/15/2011

Well here in Florida, you got 10.00 per hr to pick blueberries that's A good pay.

[TheEmptyMonty]

09:34 AM on 11/15/2011

Good for Alabama. After a long history of ignorance, it's nice that they've chosen to learn something about economics. I'm glad they're paying the price for their intolerance.

[ALABAMALEFTIST]

06:32 AM on 11/15/2011

It is an ill wind that blows no good. For over 200 years the wealthy of Alabama have had easy access to cheap labor. First slaves, then convict labor, then the sharecrop system and finally undocumented immigrants. We hear rumblings about convict labor again especially since the prisons are at 195% capacity but there are federal rules in place which limit those options. It appears the the Republicans that these farmers and fish processors voted for have shot themselves in the foot by passing this racist draconian law. Now with much weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth these people may have to pay a living wage and improve working conditions. It is frankly a bit difficult to feel sorry for them.

[Charlotte Bonnie]

05:59 AM on 11/22/2011

I didn't know leftists liked slave labor...

[gasmasquerade]

04:46 AM on 11/15/2011

See the first paragraph and that is the ENTIRE problem. There was a time when gutting fish paid better than minimum wage and was in fact work done by AMERICANS. The globalists are LYING to everyone.

[BayConnect]

02:51 AM on 11/15/2011

I am fine with states passing these laws. I do not think that GA and AL should be able to claim crop failure and government payback for crop losses due to policies the state implemented. This is a free market business decision to "hope" that US citizens will take these jobs.

Actually, I laughted as a farmer stating he voted for the AL law but did not think about the impact to his business.

[dtm410]

01:47 AM on 11/15/2011

*trouble finding Americans willing to grab a knife and stand 10 or more hours a day in a cold, wet room for minimum wage and skimpy benefits*

How's about trying maybe, shorter work days, a little heat in the room and perhaps MORE THAN MINIMUM WAGE AND SKIMPY BENEFITS!!!!

[TheEmptyMonty]

09:27 AM on 11/15/2011

Then the price of their product goes up, and they lose business to the other companies which are paying minimum wage with skimpy benefits. Duh.

[dtm410]

02:26 PM on 11/15/2011

If the only way you can make your business model work is by using illegal workers, as a business, you're already in trouble.

[wlkcrk]

12:02 AM on 11/15/2011

Do these farmers with hold income taxes from their employees??? I would guess not.

A few years ago in Florida they raided some farms where they hired homeless people and then prevented them from leaving and there was a lot of other illegal things going on. The camps were almost like slave camps.

[spytheweb]

10:00 PM on 11/14/2011

Why can't farmers hire legal non US citizen workers? Because they want the illegal labor. They want people to think we can't get Americans to take these jobs therefore we have to have the illegal labor. Legal workers mean they have to pay legal wages, give lunch & work breaks and not over work them.