Crops rotting in Ga. without immigrant workers

http://blogs.ajc.com/jay-bookman-blog/2011/06/17/gas-farm-labor-crisis-playing-out-as-planned/

If only the politicians would have watched The Colbert Report ... or followed common sense.

 

You reap what you sow.

Or maybe you don't.

 

All of those out-of-work engineers have jobs to apply for now.

 

So long as I can still buy peaches.

 

Sure, at a higher price.

 

They could use prisoners from area jails and prisons to do the work, comp those individials for "work performed" as they move toward eventually being freed, and have the companies tally up all the money that would have been paid to the migrant workers and have them donate that money to a designated, needy charity.

 

It was a joke about how the story mentioned four other fruit/food crops ahead of peaches, which is weird. So I joked that obviously the peaches will be fine, since they'll make sure those get picked.

Never mind.

 

Or, the companies could pay what the jobs are actually worth and have a large pool of applicants to choose from.

But, nah, slavery's still in.

 

I'm in favor of that option, TSP, but I don't think you'd have a quality pool of applicants. Folks are not as into working those types of jobs as they were, say, 30 or 40 years ago.
The advent of technological age has as it's nasty byproduct a lazier workforce, by and large.

 

Actually, from what I understand the state's peach crop is in good shape. There are only about five legitimate growers, and they apparently are in good shape for labor, partly due to the fact that peaches were being harvested before the backlash on this law got rolling.

The melon and vegetable crops are a different story though. And next year looks iffy for peaches.

Georgia is referred to as the peach state, but there are two or three other states that produce more.

As for the prisoners ... they're trying probationers now, and about 90 percent aren't making it past the first day doing the work.

RE: Wages. The most productive workers can rake in $20 per hour. Yeah. Slavery. They willingly come to America to do this work.

 

Pretty good AP story on the subject:

http://www.ajc.com/news/nation-world/georgia-puts-probationers-to-984075.html

 

The jobs are worth what it takes to hire people to do them legally.