Exposure to pesticides, remote location, non-existing housing, backbreaking labor intensive work, limits on bathroom breaks, you can get injured while working

Pay $8 to$9 per hour.
Be sure you can pick at least 150 lettuce per hour

Sunshine is free and you will not need/afford a gym membership. no health insurance, go away when the job dries up. Do not stay in town. We do not want your children attending our schools

Anonymous wrote:Easier for the farmer to let the crop rot and get government bailouts.
Lettuce picking in a distant locations, 10 h per day? Farmer must provide accomodation, but who would agree to slave-era doorms except the illegals

Let the farmer pick the crop if he wants to. I can grow my own lettuce for my familys need

You have a point.

For my family it is important that we eat locally sourced food from farms that with business practices in line with our morals. I have visited many of the farms that we get our food from. They employ young Americans, often men in their late teens/early 20s. One particular farm has an amazing apprenticeship program from which a lot of their labor comes from.

With that said, the produce is 2-3xs more expensive than conventional food. Our family's YEARLY budget for food is $4,000 (which includes farm fresh meat purchased in bulk). In order to meet our budget I do have a substantial home garden that supplements our vegetables, including even a winter garden. The decline of home gardens in the last 30 years is staggering.

BTW, my lettuce is GREAT right now, lettuce loves a little frost, I have the most tender greens!

Easier for the farmer to let the crop rot and get government bailouts.
Lettuce picking in a distant locations, 10 h per day? Farmer must provide accomodation, but who would agree to slave-era doorms except the illegals

Let the farmer pick the crop if he wants to. I can grow my own lettuce for my familys need

No on seems to be addressing the OP's point -- yes, americans would take these jobs IF they were offered at union wages and with benefits and under strict safety protocols.

BUT lettuce would be $9 a head. Which no one would pay. So the farm would go belly up.

The system does not work.

Anonymous wrote:So illegals are good because we can exploit them? Your premise is ridiculous and insulting, OP. Americans *will* do the jobs that illegals do....just not for the shitty pay or very long (12 hours?) hours.

Oddly, if you drop the pejorative content of the word "exploit", the free-market answer to your question is "Absolutely!" Supply and demand for jobs does not recognize borders, so real trust-the-market conservatives should support free passage across borders, along with their opposition to welfare.

Disclosure: I am playing devil's advocate, and am not a free market conservative, as is no doubt obvious.

So illegals are good because we can exploit them? Your premise is ridiculous and insulting, OP. Americans *will* do the jobs that illegals do....just not for the shitty pay or very long (12 hours?) hours.

I'd like to see your figures on wages having gone down. Affordability has gone down, but that's true for all of us. It goes hand in hand with ever-rising standards. Show me a third-generation welfare-receiving urban kid who doesn't have a TV. The real issue is that we are accustomed to getting goods at a certain price, and we will raise hell if prices go up. Also, the industries that employ these workers will raise hell to keep doing it. Your outrage cannot compete with the industry lobbyists. I'm guessing we'll see a small guest worker program, and lots and lots of looking the other way.

Also, Americans have gotten lazier. We are no longer willing to do hard labor for low wages. And we don't have to. That's nice. Why? Because our immigrant forebears did. I don't know about your great-grandfathers, but mine were factory workers. Hot, dirty, dangerous work. They had to do it to get a foothold, and let their children compete. And their hard work made this country what it is. We were on a winning streak for over a century, with only lightly-moderated immigration. Why stop now?

Face it. This is a battle you will not win. Americans are used to a certain standard of living, and they will get it. Our children will not pick crops. The children of the generationally poor won't do it either. Read up a little on how hard farmers have been working to attract any kind of labor to get their crops in.

Your xenophobic ranting may feel cathartic, but it's a waste of your time.

I am so f*cking sick of the "they take jobs no American will do!" argument.

NO.

The wages for manual labor jobs have gone down BECAUSE OF THE AVAILABILITY OF CHEAP ILLEGAL LABOR. I hate to break it to everyone, but that's why you can't make a living working as a manual laborer in this country anymore. Also, feel free to spout off about $9 lettuce...and blah blah unions and organized labor are so evil...when in reality it's the ultra-rich and the erosion of the middle class that are causing the deprivations felt by Americans right now.

Because you know who can't afford any kind of lettuce, either $1 or $9? People without jobs. If you really want to solve America's economic woes, why don't you write a snarky post to some bankers about "Seeking bankers to not sponge up money from Treasury at 0% and lend it back to the U.S., then make record profits and STILL not hire anyone, all the while buying off the politicians who made this all possible!" I'm eagerly awaiting your "wit."

And you'll pay $9 for lettuce. Schools will stop serving produce because of the cost. The obesity and nutrition crisis will worsen. Farms will go under.

Yes, new immigrants take the hardest, lowest-paying jobs. If they're bright, they work hard, gain skills, move up and educate their kids. This is the way it's always been.

I'm fine with "exploiting" immigrant labor (at minimum wage) because that's the price they pay for their shot at a better life. They provide us a service that Americans are unwilling to take on. In return, we give them social services and opportunity.

Anonymous wrote:Unemployment getting you down? Windowless office giving you Seasonal Affective Disorder? No time between meetings and spreadsheets to exercise?

Come work on a farm! 12 hour days, $10 an hour! Spend your days in the beautiful sun, bending and picking and dodging snakes and bugs! Better than pilates.

Local governments have fixed that pesky "immigrants are taking our jobs" problem with increased anti-immigration legislation, so these jobs are once again YOURS! Crops are rotting in the fields due to a severe shortage of workers to pick them, and since you love America and $1 lettuce, we're sure you'd be happy to help! Come on down to the farm and fix our economy!

Evidently, you think it was fine to exploit the illegals. The new workers will be US citizens, members of a union and they can't be exploited. Good. This is progress.

Unemployment getting you down? Windowless office giving you Seasonal Affective Disorder? No time between meetings and spreadsheets to exercise?

Come work on a farm! 12 hour days, $10 an hour! Spend your days in the beautiful sun, bending and picking and dodging snakes and bugs! Better than pilates.

Local governments have fixed that pesky "immigrants are taking our jobs" problem with increased anti-immigration legislation, so these jobs are once again YOURS! Crops are rotting in the fields due to a severe shortage of workers to pick them, and since you love America and $1 lettuce, we're sure you'd be happy to help! Come on down to the farm and fix our economy!