"ImmoralMinority" (araimondo)
07/12/2018 at 10:00 • Filed to: None
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"ImmoralMinority" (araimondo)
07/12/2018 at 10:00 • Filed to: None | 4
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Today, I go to Merced to give a presentation on immigration law and I-9 compliance to a bunch of small farmers, mostly dairies.
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
Sometimes, people get mad at me when I do these presentations. One time, an insurance broker grumbled, “I never heard a lawyer try to teach people how to get away with it.” I teach farmers how to keep hiring the labor that is available to them, while at the same time avoiding the risk of both immigration violations and discrimination claims by actually complying with the letter of the law . You would be stunned, and perhaps horrified, at the amount of thought I have given to this process for the sole purpose of keeping people who want to work employed by the people who want to hire them. And yes, I am very, very cynical about the motives, intention, and understanding of both sides of our present immigration debate.
I am not an expert, but I do know one thing that is an immutable fact . Americans will not do farm labor. It is a simple fact, and it is not because of low pay. It is because our culture views these jobs as beneath us. A typical milker on a California dairy farm makes over $40,000 per year, gets a free house, and at least a side of beef a year. This is a better deal than working in a restaurant, retail, or many other lower wage jobs in our economy. I see able bodied people begging on corners every day who would be hired in a minute to work on farms.
In all commodities in California, wages are up in agriculture due to labor shortages, b ut the workforce remains one made up of primarily recent immigrants. The more time that passes, the less interest I have in the D vs. R, left vs. right fistfight that is going on in this country. It is a major problem that we simply have not enforced our immigration laws, and that problem lies at the feet of both parties, particularly long term representatives like McCain, Feinstein, Sanders, McConnell, et al. , who are complicit in the failure to address the current system decades ago. It is also a major problem that we have to figure out what to do with those we welcomed here to work in our economy while winking at our own laws- a humane solution is needed . I think there is a discussion to be had about to regulate the border, but we aren’t having it as long as we are calling each other racists and communists.
I think of myself as a practical person, and there are cows to be milked and crops to be harvested. It isn’t just money that needs to be made - people have to eat, and these commodities feed the world. So I have developed a way to approach the I-9 where if everybody is smart enough to walk a fine line, workers can work, farms can operate, and the business remains in compliance. Honestly, given the regulatory environment in California, it is one of the few areas where I can give advice that goes beyond just risk management.
Anyway, I am grumpy because I am losing one of my best employees to a big LA law firm that can pay her way more than I can pay her. But it is a third more money in salary, and she gets to move home to LA. Her parents are elderly and their health is not good, and she doesn’t want to live here. She cried when she told me (this is a tough lady who did not cry even when union attorneys bullied her at her first court appearance), thanked me for what I have done for her career, and apologized. I am sad to lose her, but I am not mad. How can I be mad at a person who leaves to do what is best for her? I’m not happy about it, but it is part of this business, particularly for a small firm in Fresno. I train them well, and they get poached. It comes with the territory. Anybody know young lawyers looking for work in California? The last one I hired drives a manual...
ttyymmnn
> ImmoralMinority
07/12/2018 at 10:46 |
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“Americans don’t want to pick cotton at 105 degrees, but there are people who want to put food on their family’s tables and are willing to do that. We ought to say thank you and welcome them.”
TheBloody, Oppositelock lives on in our shitposts.
> ImmoralMinority
07/12/2018 at 10:49 |
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Immigration is one of those issues that will never get solved because then either side couldn’t use it to bludgeon the other side.
Don’t know any young labour lawyers so can’t help you there. What car does she drive? I want to say Jetta or Golf.
BigBlock440
> ImmoralMinority
07/12/2018 at 13:41 |
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I am not an expert, but I do know one thing that is an immutable fact. Americans will not do farm labor.
I cringe every time I hear this phrase, l ike I’m being called unAmerican, like many in my family, a lot of friends and acquaintances , we’re all not Americans because we do currently or have in the past worked on farms. I’d work a farm again in a heartbeat (and am looking to purchase my own) if I could make the same money doing that as I do an engineer, but that makes me not American apparently.
ZHP Sparky, the 5th
> ImmoralMinority
07/12/2018 at 14:26 |
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Thank you for your insight. It is insane witnessing this situation unfold in slow motion with no progress. As a legal immigrant it is also disheartening to simultaneously –
1) hear these people who benefit our economy, do
work that others won’t do, and are ultimately trying to feed their own families
through a means available and offered to them by our very own enterpreneurs
under the table since a legal mechanism to do so currently simply doesn’t exist
– for them to be disparaged using MY name is sickening
. The fact that I at the end of the
day am a very privileged
immigrant who had everything go right for me, and
still find how ridiculous
and insane the system is, and am still working through it 16 years later
…it is not one bit a
surprise to me to see how difficult it is for people in less fortunate
circumstances to come here. Don’t you dare use my name to insult them, I hold
zero grudges against them.
2) Constantly hear shouts that people should just “come
here the legal way!” or “why don’t they just get citizenship” showing a
horrifying lack of knowledge as to how that literally is not an available
option for many immigrants who A) want to come here posing no harm to this
country, and B) are sorely needed do to do work that others don’t do, not even
getting to population trends and the mass retirements of baby boomers requiring
additional workers across the board if we don’t want our economy to fall off a
cliff. What’s most ridiculous is that these demands get thrown around to come
here legally, while at the exact same time these very same people are
proponents of limiting
existing legal immigration avenues. Pretty disingenuous,
if you ask me. With this administration’s “4 pillars” immigration goals I find
myself tracking this situation daily because even being a green card holder I’m
seeing all sorts of red flags and potential pitfalls for myself and my family
being passed off as intelligent/humane/reasonable policy proposals.
Going back to your post about farm workers – if increased border security was combined with increased prosecution of employers hiring undocumented immigrants I suspect we’d see a solution real quick for this situation as those employers start lobbying/stuffing the pockets of representatives for a solution to allow more migrant farm workers to come to this country legally, even as a seasonal program. The combination of there simply not being enough willing and able farm workers in this country, the fact that employers want to keep their costs down, and none of us want to see the cost of our produce sky rocket by orders of magnitude at least when it comes to undocumented farm workers (and other similar laborers) this appears to me as the most efficient option available that will go a long way in solving many of these immigration issues. Of course people who’ve been working in this country under the table for years already, those who were brought over as children through no decision of their own, and those coming to our border to request asylum being used as pawns in any negotiation, as is already happening, that’s just pure cruelty.
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ttyymmnn
> BigBlock440
07/12/2018 at 15:11 |
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I don’t think that is what he is saying. Farmers will always farm. But when it comes to picking cotton or strawberries or apples, most Americans want nothing to do with this work no matter what it pays.
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BigBlock440
> ttyymmnn
07/12/2018 at 15:35 |
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I know that’s not what he was saying, but that’s what it feels like is implied. But that’s ok that most Americans don’t want to do that work, we don’t need most Americans to do so, just a small percentage. And I disagree about the no matter what it pays part, there’s no shortage of labor for the oil industry, and that work is probably much worse than farming.