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Wednesday, September 29, 2010

America Feeds the World: Thank Immigrant Labor!

Troy Hadrick cites this AP article finding Americans won't take low-wage farm jobs and offers this sanctimonious conclusion:

Regardless of your position on immigration, the bigger story here is that many people don’t want to work even when jobs are available. Unfortunately, many people don’t develop a work ethic and would rather rely on the government for an unemployment check. It’s a rather sad commentary on our society [Troy Hadrick, "Americans Don't Want Farm Jobs," Advocates for Agriculture, 2010.09.29].

Leave it to a professional propagandist for the ag industry to offer pompous distractions from practical policy issues. Hadrick pops off with arrogant, manly-man horsepuckey about how the rest of society obviously isn't as industrious or independent as he is. He deliberately spins away from the bigger story, which is that your cheap groceries come thanks immigrant labor, much of it driven here by our own predatory trade practices, and the immorally low wages the ag-industrialists pay their workers.

Hadrick's agriculture industry likes to repeat the mantra Tell Your Story. The immigrant workers who ensure our food supply would like to have time to tell their story, too, but they're too busy doing our work and feeding America.

So the next time the ag-industrial complex tells you to Thank a Farmer®, maybe you should walk over to the Mexican part of town and say gracias to an immigrant.

6 comments:

  1. Great post Cory. Thanks!
    Si se puede, hermano.
    Viva la causa.

    http://www.ufw.org/

    ReplyDelete
  2. Also this.
    Take the Ag Jobs pledge here.
    http://action.ufw.org/page/s/agjobspledge?source=web

    ReplyDelete
  3. Custer State Park and Mt.Rushmore concessions hire temp. workers from Eastern Europe and Africa during the tourist season. It isn't a choice of being to lazy to work, it is work that involves a person to be mobile in order to be employed.

    Immigrant labor is needed and should be embraced.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Great post Cory.

    @Bill thanks for linking to the AgJobs Pledge. The UFW is a great organization!

    ReplyDelete
  5. Thanks, Matt! And thanks, Bill, for links to the people affected most by this issue. Let's see if Hadrick ever gives those farm workers props.

    ReplyDelete
  6. And Thad, I like to think that every immigrant who comes here and has a good work experience makes America stronger. Either that immigrant stays here and keeps working and paying taxes and buying groceries from the local store, or that immigrant goes home and becomes a goodwill ambassador for America.

    ReplyDelete

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