Not enough workers to harvest Florida oranges
The Sunshine State has plenty of oranges on its trees. Trouble is there aren’t enough people to pick them.
Florida citrus industry officials warn between three and six million boxes of oranges may not be harvested this year, as a result. If the worst case scenario proves true, it’ll be the state’s lowest orange production since 1992.
Officials blame talk of immigration crackdowns for their difficulty in finding Hispanic workers, who comprise much of Florida’s farm work force. One grower says word spread through the Hispanic community that people had to return home if they wanted future jobs in the US.
Curiously there is no evidence of any massive return to Mexico anywhere. It’s not in California or Texas. Are they swimming home from Florida? So this is a crock for sure. If anything they’ve taken construction jobs “Americans don’t want.” How long do we have to tolerate this bullshit?
There is no shortage of Hispanic workers where I live. We had a lot of construction and a lot of jobs. Our church had to create an additional Sunday mass in Spanish and the Hispanic membership is very active. Many businesses have been opened by Hispanics to fill the needs of the Hispanic workforce here. This segment of society has been a very positve addition to our community.
I would guess that the Florida orange growers just are not willing to pay enough to compete for the labor force. That’s how they lost the labor pool they had before the Hispanic community came in and picked their crop. If they would pay enough to make the jobs attractive, they would have all the laborers they need. If they don’t want to do that, maybe they should invent mechanical pickers that won’t damage the trees.
Our government does not punish companies who hire illegals because those companies contribute a lot of money to their election campaigns. Law enforcement don’t bother to arrest them because the feds just let them go. Citizens don’t do anything because the lemmings (hello Johnny!) will start screaming that they are “racists”. When the Minute Men first started patrolling the border, the feds came down to the border to watch THEM. Companies hire these willing slaves and pass the medical and taxpayer costs on directly to normal Americans. It’s all about the rich turning the middle class into the underclass. 3rd generation Mexicans do the same jobs their grandparents did, so clearly they are not benefitting either.
This sounds like a prelude to the “great orange shortage of 2006”, which led to the doubling of orange prices.
I agree with the above. Sounds like a ploy to raise the prices of OJ.
we tolerate it becasue this country has gotten lazy. No American dreams of thier child being a GARDENER, FRUIT PCKER, Construction workers. they all want their childs to be, lawyers, doctors, Trophy wives President of U.S. There’s an article on the latimes website from weeks ago where they talk about a landscpaing company that hires legal people only. the pay was 35 dollars an hour and they couldn’t find workers.
Wanna know why, cause most americans have become lazy, overweight, Mcdonalds eating, complainers
When you use stopgap methods to solve a problem you postpone the remedy and prolong the pain. Is there a shortage of illegals to pick and deseed cotton these days? No, there are tools that do that now. The stopgab of cheap illegal workers keeps inovation from stepping up and solving the issue and creating ultimately lower OJ prices.
Pay more, you will get the workers, who says they have to be Aliens are not US citizins capible of picking them, you just have to pay at lest minimum wage (or more depending on the economy down there) you can get the people to pick them, it that those down there don’t want to spend more then $0.05 a day on a worker.
Jobs “Americans don’t want” are jobs that don’t pay a living wage. At what point do people finally recognise that the low cost food they enjoy comes on the back of workers living in dilapidated housing, generally without any sanitation and being paid wages that would violate any minimum wage law in any State.
Since I work in a factory, it sometime gets up to 120 in there, but it pays good money..so I stay, if I was working out in the fields and they paid the kind of money that an auto worker gets that works at an assembly plant I would stay, but they would never pay that kind of money. but if I was from a different country and could work here for a year, then send my money back home where, working here would be like working 5 years in my own country.. I would love that..
Or could it be that the excessively generous social programs make it so that working is simply a foolish concept for those who manage to get across the border? Why work when you can live on the Gringo’s guilt?
@ #5–Can you produce a citation for the article describing landscaping jobs paying $35/hr?
[editor: most of the posts with that $30+ citation are just trolls advertising a web site — deleted according to Commenting Guidelines]
One reason might be.
in the keys and other places damaged by last years hurricans many migrint workers have found better wages doing clean up, demolition and restoration work.
call the wetbacks if you will.
i call them unsung hereos!
Amen to that. When I was in N.O. the hispanics were the ones doing the heavy lifting.
You still don’t get it, stew. Of course, illegals had all the labor-intensive jobs. They were working for half the pay of American citizens. Meanwhile, low-income Louisiana folks were out of their own jobs.
I guess nobody remembers “Remember the Alamo!”
Stef: Amen! I just can’t see anyone from the MTV generation plucking fruits and listening to their iPods.
Plus if the farmers paid more or even better, gave the workers some if any protection from pesticides perhaps they could get more workers.
stef — I’m not going to track down the details; but, I have enough experience with German politics to guess that law you reference does not require unemployed Germans to take “any” job — if it’s offered below the median wage for the job description. And that’s really what farmers whine about.
Angel — the usual case, here in the States, is that illegals essentially are used as scabs to cut wages. Meatpackers earned on average $19/hour — 20 years ago. Now, that wage is $9/hour. We ain’t seeing any meat prices going down as a result.
The same is true for construction labor throughout the country. And in many areas of the North which previously used local seasonal labor — even imported labor from the Caribbean — those wages have been cut by a third or half with the introduction of undocumentados. It used to be what school kids did for summer jobs.
Yes, especially the Anglos. Lou Dobbs, the Conservative analyst, worked his way through high school and college picking peaches and strawberries on farms in the West. That was in the era of Braceros and legal seasonal workers from Mexico — and everyone got the same pay.
There’s an article on the latimes website from weeks ago where they talk about a landscpaing company that hires legal people only. the pay was 35 dollars an hour and they couldn’t find workers.
Comment by Joe — 7/10/2006 @ 5:57 am
Joe, where is the link?
First I don’t believe it. For $35 / hr I would expect a 4 year degree in Horticulture, not some unskilled or semi skilled worker.
Second, you make a lot of insinuations and bold statements. Besides your own prejudice, can you link to any authoritative articles.
Have any of you been to New Orleans or the Gulf Coast lately?
Those Mexican workers everyone is looking for? – They’re all here providing the millions upon millions of man-hours needed to rebuild this place.
They’ve been well received here; and I don’t blame them for not wanting to go back to texas/florida where they don’t seem to be appreciated by the populace.
> The Sunshine State has plenty of oranges on its trees. Trouble
> is there aren’t enough people to pick them.
Bullshit. There are always plenty of people will to pick oranges if the price you are willing to pay them is sufficiently high. Sounds like the Florida farmers are having a tough time dealing with a few concepts such as “market economy” and “supply and demand for labor.” If they were paying people $1000 / hour to pick oranges I guarantee that there would be no shortage of people. Market adjustments can many times be painful lessons.
WHEW…..thanks Eideard…..I thought I was going to have to type out my meat packers and construction workers stuff again……lol
If you guys keep putting up these illegal topics I may just make a permanent copy of my spiel…….
joshua — anyone who watches the biz news with Lou Dobbs knows the meatpacking and orchard stories by heart! 🙂
Construction industry stuff is from my own experiences over the last decade.
Where’s MisterRustic, lately? He has the don’t-blame-Bush boilerplate.
how many bloggers are picking oranges or swinging hammers?
do you want those jobs?
What a delightfully egregious bit of analysis, woktiny!
Let’s follow it consistently: I’m an older happily-married white male — therefore I should have no opinion or responsibility for questions about our education system, women’s rights or safe sex.
I try to live within the Commenting Guidelines at this site; but, I must admit that it’s difficult to refrain from flaming, sometimes.