"Take Our Jobs!" says Immigrants to Americans

[blazespinnaker]

http://money.cnn.com/2010/07/07/news...n_bin&hpt=Sbin

Facing growing anti-immigrant rhetoric, the United Farm Workers union is challenging Americans to take their labor-intensive, low-paying farm jobs. ... Through its Web site, at www.takeourjobs.org, the union promises to connect applicants with farm jobs in their area.

Most applicants quickly lose interest once the reality sinks in that these are back-breaking jobs in triple-digit temperatures that pay minimum wage, usually without benefits, according to the union. Some small farms are not required to pay minimum wage and in 15 states farms aren't required to offer workers' compensation.

Basically slave labor.

[flintlock]

Re: "Take Our Jobs!" says Immigrants to Americans

Is this not a "Red Herring" argument? Are not most of these seasonal farm picker jobs granted visas to do so? Perhaps not. But I don't think the jobs most anti-illegal immigration people are talking about are the backbreaking Farm jobs. I'm still waiting for the house painting challenge. Or the McDonalds challenge.

Yes, it is akin to slavery. And the same farmers who hire them at those wages are probably also paying for that UFW website.

I am becoming a little tired of these type articles and shows by people like Steven Colbert. They are demeaning to illegal immigrants in that they take a lofty view of superiority as if every illegal was an ignorant creature with no skills, to be pitied and "given" the handout of a job. I know quite a few highly skilled illegal immigrants in the construction trades, hardly mere fruit pickers. Of course in America, any type of manual labor is now looked down upon and viewed as being basically all the same, ie for stupid people.

[Slimprofits]

Re: "Take Our Jobs!" says Immigrants to Americans

Around the cities and suburbs, they're not working on farms, they're the landscapers, the contract laborers and kitchen workers.

According to the Restaurant Opportunities Center of New York, in 2005, 70% of all restaurant workers were foreign born in NYC.