Farmers

Immigrant Jobs: A Journalist Goes To The Tomato Field

October 14, 2011 by Left in Alabama

More of this, please ...

I met up Wednesday with four men desperate enough to take on hard, low-paying jobs that, for decades, have been reserved for Mexican migrants.

...

"It's OK. It's just work," laid-off electrician Jeb Stuart Lessley said. "But I don't want to do it forever."

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Because our agricultural system, which keeps food prices low, has exploited immigrant labor because it could. ...  Our dirty little secret -- that we keep our grocery prices low only by failing to pay a living wage -- is out.

Farm work is hard work, really hard labor.  In the real world it is dangerous, dirty and uncomfortable ... anything but a romantic, pastoral occupation.  Pay is incredibly low and the physical wear and tear on bodies mean few people can make a career of it.  Chicken plants are just as bad and construction is not much better.

Scott Beason Too Good To Get His Hands Dirty With Farm Work

October 4, 2011 by Left in Alabama

Farm work is hard work, literally back-breaking labor.  Ivory-tower Republicans like state Sen. Scott Beason (R, Gardendale) who say there are plenty of natural born Alabamians clamoring for the physically grueling, low paying jobs in poultry plants and agricultural fields have no idea how hard that work is. 

And in Beason's case, he has absolutely no interest in finding out what the back-breaking job of picking tomatoes feels like, refusing point-blank to pick even a single bucket for a farmer whose crop is rotting in the field.

After talking with famers at the tomato shed, Beason visited the Smith family's farm. Leroy Smith, Chad Smith's father, challenged the senator to pick a bucket full of tomatoes and experience the labor-intensive work.

Beason declined but promised to see what could be done to help farmers while still trying to keep illegal immigrants out of Alabama.

Smith threw down the bucket he offered Beason and said, "There, I figured it would be like that."