New Law Creates Thousands of Georgia Job Openings
Decatur Metro | May 27, 2011 | 11:29 amFrom the AJC…
Migrant farmworkers are bypassing Georgia because of the state’s tough new immigration enforcement law, creating a severe labor shortage among fruit and vegetable growers here and potentially putting hundreds of millions of dollars in crops in jeopardy, agricultural industry leaders said this week.
…Charles Hall, executive director of the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, said he has been in close contact with Labor Commissioner Mark Butler and Agricultural Commissioner Gary Black about the shortage, calling it the most severe he has seen. Hall said it’s possible state officials could hold job fairs to steer some of Georgia’s unemployed workers to these farm jobs, which pay $12.50 an hour on average. The state’s unemployment rate is now at 9.9 percent.
Sure it’s backbreaking work, but a job’s a job, right? Local food advocates? The under-employed? Hello?
Take it, Colbert…
Well with the wonderful, affordable, state-wide integrated public transportation network we have developed through the years, it will be simple to shuttle people back and forth from urban centers to jobs in the rural peripheries of the state. Oh, wait…
Dealing with this issue at a state rather than national level results in an uneven playing field. States that continue to undercut agricultural labor costs through the blackmail game of classifying people as “illegal” are now at an advantage over Georgia.
Have you ever worked from sunup to sundown during the growing season? It’s not a job description many of us aspire to, unfortunately. Or should I say, no longer a job description many of us aspire to.
I think you nailed it, Tom. Which begs the question: If we can acknowledge that, by and large, we’re unwilling to do those jobs, is there any sense at all in shutting out the remaining people who will? It’s a textbook example of cutting off one’s nose to spite their face.
I’m not talking about amnesty or any other loaded term. But if we accept that they play a key role in getting our food to market, we should answer that reality with an appropriate migrant worker program that spells out reasonable conditions under which undocumented immigrants can be here. Then enforce the conditions.
Who needs a boycott? There was some discussion of one after this passed, but this is just the first proof the law’s ridiculous. (Arizona has already figured this out.)
And if you like to eat at a nice restaurant, watch for rising prices, lower quality cooking, and shorter hours.
Yay! Now our unemployment rate will plummet to previously unheard of lows! Those people who’ve lost jobs in manufacturing, IT, call centers, etc. can get to work picking vegetables and putting up drywall.
Also, $12.50 an hour? Well, I’m sure the healthcare package makes up for the modest wages.
And the pension plan!
Leaving aside the immigration debate, if they can’t attract workers at that level of compensation, shouldn’t they be forced to pay more? Market forces right?
Those Vidalia onions will taste all the more sweeter at twice the price.
The vast majority of migrant laborers are here LEGALLY with work visas. It’s a shame that the new laws have pushed them to other states.
What is your basis for this statement? Can you clarify as to how enforcing our laws against illegal immigration is pushing migrant workers with legal work visas to other states?
An article in the AJC quoted farmers as saying legal migrants who usually work at their farms told them they won’t come to Georgia this year because they feared harassment from law enforcement:
http://www.ajc.com/news/georgia-politics-elections/governor-asks-state-to-959920.html
Farming looks mighty easy when your plow is a pencil, and you’re a thousand miles from the corn field. Dwight D. Eisenhower
PREACH!!!!
Ignorant, short-sighted law, predictable results. And down the road, the eagerness to run off all the brown, non-English-speaking people will have even deeper consequences. As the 2010 census showed, the only reason we aren’t yet like Europe, where the ratio of pensioners to workers has fallen to an unsustainable 1:4, is the influx of relatively young Hispanics over the past two decades. With the boomers starting to hit 65, we’ll soon be begging for young workers, and regretting our current indulgence in xenophobia. The secret of America’s success is that the long-term benefits of immigration have always far outbalanced the short-term costs. After all, who are you going to sell your family-sized home to a couple decades from now? Another retiree?
Way to go Georgia Legislators for making us safe from immigrant labor.
Smart move by Gov. Deal in response. Let’s set up a “research team” with a short deadline and shallow depth to disprove this “nonsense” of a worker shortage, and then we can depend on a dim electorate to constantly point back at our weak research to bolster our claims that this HB 87 had no negative effects on Georgia’s agriconomy. Brilliant.
As far as local food advocates go – is it really “local” if you import the labor, which is a huge component of food production?
As far as the “this is racist!” argument goes – We’ve got a 17% unemployment rate among African-American males in this state. In theory, a crackdown on illegal labor would benefit that minority – no?