Here's some commentary on JAWD.
Pretty much makes the point I make periodically: in the absence of illegal alien labor, there will be fewer farm jobs at higher pay and greater capital investment.
http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=MjJiZDc0ZTYzYTNmNDA3MGYzYmMwMzA0MzYwNjVkMDk=Take My Job — Please! [Mark Krikorian]
I just flew in from Cleveland, and boy, are my arms tired!
But seriously, folks. The United Farm Workers has launched a tongue-in-cheek lobbying campaign (to be highlighted tomorrow on Colbert's show) called "Take Our Jobs." In the words of the AP story, the effort encourages "the unemployed — and any Washington pundits who want to join them — to apply for [some of the] thousands of agricultural jobs being posted with state agencies as harvest season begins"; there's an online form under the heading "I want to be a farm worker." The message is that America can't function without an endless supply of peasant labor from abroad, the goal being to make the case for the AgJobs bill, which would amnesty illegal-alien farm workers and set up an open-ended indentured-labor program to import more. (This is one of the two main piecemeal amnesties that are apparently now on the agenda of the Democrats and their fellow-travelers on the right.)
Clever, and props to the marketing firm that came up with it. But since the effort was initiated by a labor union, it is, inevitably, economically illiterate. The fact is that no one wants to be a farm worker, not even farm workers, precisely because we have so many foreign farm workers. In other words, the low pay and appalling working conditions in farm labor are a direct result of excessive illegal immigration and agricultural guest-worker programs, which keep the labor market looser than it would otherwise be and reduce incentives for change. With fewer field hands available, farmers would do two things: First, raise wages and improve working conditions (because given the right circumstances, there are a non-trivial number of Americans and legal immigrants willing to do farm work). Second, they'd accelerate efforts at finding ways of getting by with less labor; i.e., mechanize.
Contrary to the assumption behind this amnesty effort, reducing the amount of foreign farm labor through better enforcement and ending guest-worker programs would not mean all those jobs would have to be filled by Andy Anglo and Wendy Whitebread. Rather, the foreign farm workers would be replaced by the likes of this:
lettuce harvester
and this:
mini-harvester
(These are from Ramsey Highlander; there are other manufacturers as well.)
Sure, they still require labor, but the workers would be fewer, and more productive, and thus better paid, turning what is now a primitive, atavistic work environment featuring exploitation and injury into something a little more civilized. No one dreams of a career collecting trash, either, but with high pay and automatic can-dumpers, there are plenty of (native-born) takers.
http://www.cis.org/krikorian/JAWD
