Saturday, November 25, 2017
The NY dairy farmer's conundrum
From NBC:
Dairy farms in New York are relying on workers in the country without documentation. Pablo Gutierrez reports on the issue.
This is a very interesting report. On the one hand, the farmers say no Americans are willing to do this work. To some extent that's probably true, but would they offer a wage that would be fair to an American? Probably not. They want to keep the cost of milking down, so they exploit undocumented labor by paying them poorly and forcing them to work extended hours. Yet they claim they want see a change in the Visa program which allows the workers to stay legally. If that happens, the workers will have to at least be paid minimum wage, if not a living wage as courts have ordered in the past. And then the cost of producing milk goes up and farms go under. We've created quite a mess in this country.
11 comments:
Undocumented workers, illegal immigrants, are keeping dairy and food prices artificially low. The ironic thing is that when milk prices drop many NY dairy farmers switch the herd from milking cows to beef cows. Some will just give up the farm because it just isn't worth it. Farmers are already getting many Government subsidies to keep food prices low. Where does this stop? Free food for everyone? Sounds like a Utopian dream. The underpaid American worker will need free food soon just to survive. It just keeps going around and around. Welcome to the new order, many will survive but few will thrive.
Moo-velous. Just moo-velous! Always cow-towing to the illegals.
Time to beef-up the border.
The illegals are milking us dry. ( George started it.)
"They want to keep the price of milk down"
Farmers do not control the price of milk- it is a commodity. What they want to do is keep the cost of production down so they can sell it at the market price and make a profit. One of the problems dairy farmers face is that the cows need to be milked regardless of the market price of milk. The cows do not simply stop producing milk when the price of milk falls below the level of profitability.
Uhm, you guys do realize that NYS regulates the price of milk by law, yes?
Thanks for your corrections. The text has been edited to better explain the problem.
This situation is, tit for tat, udder nonsense.
The story is about the workers being undocumented. I didn't hear any accusations of paying below the minimum wage. Your synopsis implies the workers are paid below the minimum wage because they are illegal. Whether they are or not I do not know, but your synopsis seems to be based on assumptions rather than facts.
"Further, the many agricultural workers employed on smaller farms — any farm that employs fewer than roughly seven workers in a calendar quarter — are not even protected by the minimum wage provisions of the FLSA."
US Labor Law for Farm Workers
You're still just making stuff up saying that if the workers become illegal they will then have to be paid minimum wage, and the linking to the labor law that certain farm workers do not have to be paid minimum wage. Pick one.
You said you didn't hear any accusations about the workers getting paid below minimum wage. It is common knowledge that illegal workers get paid below legal wage, also get paid in cash for the most part. The majority of agricultural workers are illegal and work on farms that employ more than 7 people. They will be subject to minimum wage provisions if they are given work visas and that will cut into the farmers' profit margin.
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