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Whiskey, Tango, Foxtrot | Boy, and I thought Cousinit was ignorant, and here FarmKid1001 takes it to a whole, new, level!
First let me ask you, do you think driving a tractor (even nice ones), building fence, milking cows, or feeding cows is a 60k a year job? I never made that in a year before I was farming, in construction (seasonal somewhat) and even if you include the 'perks' of owning a farm, I've never brought that much home. Those types of jobs are min. wage jobs, lot of guys pay better than that when they get some good help. You can't seriously believe that some guy out putting pipe in a field should be making 60k a year? SOMEBODY has to be at the low end, or we'd all end up making the same, and then what would the incentive to do better be?
I think they tried that, called communism or something...
As far as everyone being a 'plantation style farm'... really? I'm pretty sure Ben in the Basin has posted on here before that it is himself, some immediate family, and one employee. How is that anything but a family farm.
Myself, it is my wife and I. We have enough irrigating to do that we were going to have to hire help, wife was teaching and didn't like it. So she became the 'employee' around here. Works great for us as we wanted to have kids and felt Mom should be at home. We hire part time help to do work, but I usually do as much as I can myself. Do we qualify for plantation status? The help we hire is always Mexican, I'd love to hire English speaking help as my Spanish sucks. Local town has at least 300 unemployed white people, and I wouldn't hire any of them. I am usually looking for someone who can help me, not steal my stuff (if they show up) and talk on their cell phone.
I partner with two other growers on hay, I provide hay crops, they harvest for %. I do custom work for the same guys, lease equipment to and from them, etc. Often I end up working for them as bodies are always short during haying. Guess what, I get paid the same as the Mexicans. If all I'm doing is driving a baler around why would I get paid more? I used to work full time for one of the guys, and help manage some crews for him. Then I got paid more, but I was managing employees and had much more responsibilities. Does your manager get paid more than you?
Oh, I forgot, you work for one of those rich oil companies. You all probably get paid 200k a year. After all, money is no object to companies that are all making record profits by raping the consumer. I wonder if you asked an American consumer who they thought made more money, an oil company or a farmer, what would they say? Which is causing more of a financial hardship on families, food prices or fuel prices?
See, I can stereotype too, if that is the game you want to play.
Now my family owns a packing shed, during the harvest run (they harvest in spring and fall) for about 3 weeks they need 40 people or so. Should they pay those people 60k a year? The rest of the year they have one person part time. All Mexican, oh, and all legal BTW. I don't know where all these 'illegal' people are, need a SSN to hire. Some #'s are bogus, but a lot of the white people who want to work, won't provide a SSN as they want paid in Cash... so it doesn't screw up their welfare or disability. That is the LAST person I'd hire.
I'm sure with having that many employees, they qualify as a large plantation owner. Guess I'd better go up to Dad's doublewide trailer and let him know. He'll get a real kick out that I'm sure. Is he a family farm?
Do you have any idea what food prices would be if farmworkers got paid 60k? If farmworkers are getting paid 60k, better jobs are going to have to pay better... it's real easy to say farmworkers should just get paid more, but capitalism doesn't work like that. Low end of the payscale type jobs are what provides the incentive for people to better themselves and work harder, smarter, etc to get a better job. Pay everyone more and you take away that incentive. That is what all of the government welfare and safety nets have done to the white labor in this country. See how well that has worked? The Mexican laborers are not the problem, they are just a symptom of a larger problem in our society, called laziness.
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Negativity towards dairy farming?
