As Alabama has been discovering, when you pass the nation's more draconian anti-immigration law, you end up with a few unintended consequences. Let's say you arrest a German manager for the local Mercedes-Benz plant for not carrying the right papers, followed by a Japanese employee for Honda, and then the governor has to reassure everyone the state's open for business. That's embarrassing.
Then your farmers start having trouble getting the crops in from the field, and even local American-born volunteers can't make up the difference. Now planting season is coming up, and you've got an emergency for farmers, a critical shortage of labor that requires the different parts of the administration to put their heads together and come up with a fix.
Today in Mobile, a government confab will hear a proposal to rescue the farmers with prison labor. That's right -- Alabama is considering solving the crisis its lawmakers created by sending inmates into the fields. Instead of a migrant worker who risked so much to come here, farmers would get convicts. From the Alabama papers:
[T]he agenda includes a presentation on whether work-release inmates could help fill jobs once held by immigrants.
Irony of ironies, the Alabama Department of Corrections says most of its 2,000 inmates who are eligible for work are busy already.
Prison spokesman Brian Corbett says the state has about 2,000 work-release prisoners, and most already have jobs.
Corbett says the prison system isn't the solution to worker shortages caused by the law.
Prison labor must be popular. Up top, a clip from American Chain Gang, a documentary about prison labor in Alabama and Arizona (which, of course, has the nation's other most draconian anti-immigration law).
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Maybe the Newtster can send poor kids from the local municipalities to fill in as farm hands!
Actually I picked berries as a summer job. Made some money, learned some work ethic and figured out that I didn't want to pick for a living. I'll be darned if I would let my kids go pick will illegal migrants or convicts now though.
Here's an idea...if you don't rely on cheaper labor to run your business or rely on migrant work to feed your family, might I suggest you shut the hell up! I have not heard one person say that this issue has cost them a job or caused their business to lose money. Your personal opinion on how you feel about migrant workers has nothing to do with the financial impact on American businesses and the lives of migrants. (by the way, they are human beings). If you need someone to appear less fortunate than you so that you may feel better about yourself...that's sad. Remember...You are a "legal immigrant"....Being a Citizen does not mean you have to elevate yourself to the status of Immigration Nazi. Being a Proud American, I don't feel it necessary to look down on those who want to be one. I want secure borders...I don't want to beat up on hard working migrants in the process. These are two separate issues.
Sorry...I'm confused here..."draconian anti-immigration law"....why are you using the term "draconian"??
It fits.
According to Dictionary.com, the lowercase version of "draconian", as it was used here, means "rigorous; unusually severe or cruel."
So far, this legislation has caused Alabama embarrassment and now problems for the agricultural industry. Clearly, it's more severe than they intended.
lol, prolixity, I think its every bit as severe as they intended. BUT, I think they didn't think through all the ramifications.
The republicans passing laws like this right now remind me of the Disney animated movie Meet The Robinsons, where the bad guy never thinks anything through, and keeps coming up against unintended consequences....I keep picturing the T-Rex saying:
"I've got a big head and little arms. And I'm just not sure how well this plan was thought through... Master?"
I agree, MaryGarland. What Obama should do is mobilize troops to the borders around Alabama and make sure that absolutely NO illegal aliens enter the state. None to pick crops, work with horses, work in the hospitality industry. None whatsoever. Zero tolerance.
The anti-immigrant law will be off the books within a few months.
But if he had put them on the US border, there would be no law. The farmers could still exploit the workers, crops would still come in, food prices....
The word "draconian" is much more polite than the term "terminal brain fart".
Alabama already knows people who need jobs are not willing to work the fields, how much better is it going to be with prison labor? What happens if they fail their job, they still get a roof over their heads and food 3x per day.
Bring back the migrant workers.
It is not the fact that people who need jobs won't work the fields, it is that they won't do it for slave wages. Every other undesirable job pays well, postal worker, plumber, trash man, construction worker, etc. These jobs are not the most desirable, people do them because they pay well. So the farmers should use some of the subsidy money the receive to attempt to pay a livable wage.
It is not the fact that people who need jobs won't work the fields, it is that they won't do it for slave wages
What slave wages? The migrant workers from an Alabama tomato farm were paid $2.00 a box. Migrant workers could make 150-200 per day picking tomatoes. White workers were only able to reach a max of $89 per day. The faster you work, the more you make. It's called piecework. I did it picking berries in the summer as a kid. $.25 a crate back then.
It's no different than a waitress who makes under minimum wage because she receives tips. Who wants to work for less than minimum?
These would be good jobs for all the folks the banks are laying off now so they can show their Christmas spirit. Bank of America alone can provide 4100 farm workers.
Alabama wants to be just like China and who knows how many other places that happily use prison labor to turn a profit. However, the people who will be "renting" these workers will definitely want to make a profit, so overall the farmers will most likely be the worse off for it and the consumers that buy or don't buy their products.
Exactly right, Bob. Prison labor is quickly becoming a lucrative venture for private contractors, in spite of our criticism of China for doing the same thing. The below link has some interesting info, but it is by no means all that's out there. This is indeed slave labor for profit.
This in no way is meant to justify prisoners not having to work, but there are limits to what is acceptable use of prison labor. There has to be close scrutiny to the profit margin, or we'll be half-way down a very slippery slope.
As Ed says: "It can't always be about the profit." Paying back the taxpayers for costs of incarceration is one thing. Making profits for private corporations is quite another.
http://people.umass.edu/kastor/private/prison-labor.html
Slaves. They want slaves.
The corporate fascists want us to be so stupid that we don't notice they're removing our rights and our jobs and only making education available to a certain group of people...everybody else can go reproduce indiscriminately and then die.
We already have privatized prisons. Operating costs plus profit is picked up by the agency supplying bodies. Renting bodies produces additional profit for the prison contractor. I picture a heavy demand for this slave labor with all kinds of kickbacks to everyone in the supply chain.
Exactly right Carolina. This was one of the odious stipulations of the Black Codes that preceded Jim Crow. Black felons were sold to white masters at a low price. Worse, this creates an incentive to imprison people. Moreso than the private prison system in Arizona that Az1070 was suppose to be a feeder for. Anyone want to put money down that they will start ramping up the War on Drugs in Alabama to get the requisite bodies to the farmers?
Wasn't this same "practice" used during Jim Crow - prison labor to plant/pick, build the railways, etc., - and wasn't that part of the whole "cruel & unusual punishment"?!? And who is actually getting "Paid" - the privatized prison system or the "inmates"......
Yep, vote them out in 2012!!
Don is onto something. We're going to have to put A LOT more people in prison if we're going to have enough forced labor to cover all of the work currently done by the people we're not going to have here.
Beware, jaywalkers, parking violators, and people who overstate their itemized deductions by a couple hundred dollars. Those "crimes" are going to be penalized much more heavily in the future.
In 1968 I heard a chant in the streets of Chicago that applies to today's reality "We are all ni**ers now". The Wall Street/Washington Axis of Evil started the prison privatization mania in the 70's. Draconian drug laws fill the private subsidized for profit prisons that provide slave labor to private businesses. Great way around the 13th amendment prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude. All I can say is that the tipping point is being reached and if it comes down to the survival of the masses or the power elite, I favor numbers over weapons.
Gingrich has a plan for that; his "humane" plan for the easing in of legalizing immigrants isn't because he's getting soft in his old age. His second 'plan' for backing off of child labor laws clarifies that, for me, anyway. The more near-slave labor that can be arranged to be put into low-paid jobs, the better for his business base; that is, his rich business base, putting more money in their pockets that they don't have to pay in labor costs, especially since many schools have gone to outsourcing their janitorial work to, what else, save money. Criminal, I mean criminey.
yeah that's pretty much it. It reminds me of The Jungle when the old German grandma is talking about how each new generation of immigrants that came to America was able to do so by accepting smaller and smaller wages while the companies they worked for got larger and more profitable from year to year. The Mexican immigrants were just another step in that direction. Now we need to find someone cheaper and voila! necessity brings us prisoners because legally we can pay them almost nothing (or in some instances absolutely nothing), but still get the work done. I do not agree w/ paying immigrant workers unlivable wages or paying them under the radar instead of offering them visa's (because it's bad for the immigrant in the long run), but this law took any sort of practical step towards reforming immigration and expletived all over it.
"What we got hea'- Is failure- to communicate"
Some men you just can't reach. So you get what we had here last week, which is the way he wants it... well, he gets it. I don't like it any more than you men.
Being a native of Alabama has always been an embarrassment, it seems to be getting worse lately.
Being an Okie is like that too. We've not had much in the way of dignity since Will Rogers.
Actually being an American is like that, it is pretty embarrassing to have to explain our failing political system, our joke of a political process, our rejection of science and knowledge, our obsession with sex and religion and our incredible societal stupidity. We are a society that believes in the highest ideals of humanity and lives in ways that create misery for most of the world. We are admired for our ideals and loathed for our behavior. The world seems to believe the American people are better than the American government, I'm not so sure about that.
As far as I am concerned, Alabama can harvest vegetables with prison labor if they want to, but I will not purchase any of this produce.
How do you know?
Do you mean how would I know--since it has not happened yet. Retailers frequently post where produce comes from. There is no reason to believe that it would not be possible to know which vegetables and fruit are grown in Alabama. If it comes to this kind of 'slave' labor harvesting produce I would boycott all produce grown in Alabama. Alabama can have its state's rights crap--I don't have to participate in their hate policies.
Eat much chicken?
Scarlett O'Hara used prison labor in her lumber mill even though Ashley wanted to use {I'm quoting here, don't yell at me} freed darkies. Hmmm, set in the South. Prison labor vs low paid no-rights immigrants. Nothing in Alabama has changed in 150 years.
Prison spokesman Brian Corbett says the state has about 2,000 work-release prisoners, and most already have jobs.
Corbett says the prison system isn't the solution to worker shortages caused by the law
sounds like a continuation of a employment problem as this seems like it will not help.
Maybe they want to jail the illegals and put them in the fields?
If they left before, why would they want to stick around now?
I think it's a splendid idea- providing that they start with white-collar prisoners. I'd love to see the likes of Bernie Madoff and Enron execs out in the fields picking cotton. Of course, the whole illegal immigrant "crisis" is just another distraction from the real problems our country is facing, and from those responsible for causing them.
Let them pick strawberries, Ken, not cotton. Strawberries require stooping, hands and knees, debasement in the dirt to get the beautiful fruit that hides under leaves that grow close to the ground.
Make them grovel, don't let them stand to work, make them crawl. I bet they love their strawberries with cream and sugar in the morning. So let them pick their own breakfast!
or cucumbers! You have to pass the cucumber through a rubber ring to determine if it's the right size! That's a mental image! Some of them are known for their nasty behavior with boys, so let them play with cucumbers and rubber rings where anyone driving by can watch!
We could have some fun with this! Come on, everyone, let's play! What crops should republican stupidlawmakers be forced to harvest in order to help the farmers they've screwed?
We could put Dr Murray to work caring for prisoners. I hear it's not illegal to kill THEM.
Chain gangs are not for white folks, and Dr. Murray would not be caring or killing on an Alabama chain gang, he'd be working his brown ass off. Not a cool post, nor a funny one.
As stknmov notes above, the added benefit of doing it this way is the farmers (plantation owners?) get the same workforce but get to pay a fraction as much for them. The undocumented workers were getting say $2.00/hr and they can round 'em up, arrest them, jail them and lease them back from the prison for $1.00/hr.
It's just business, right?
I hope you are being sarcastic. That's the problem with ridiculing conservatives. What we liberals say as jest they believe in all earnestness. I've been made to understand that Ann Coulter, Limbaugh, and Beck all started out as comedians but were taken so seriously they became prophets. Scary monsters.
Try .25 an hour, I am a correctional officer, that is what we pay our work line inmates.
not bad, here in Pa. its $.56 a day
If only the GOP was as effective at governing as they are at propaganda.
Talking points may put votes in the ballot box but doesn't bring crops in from the feilds.
Perhaps a living wage for workers might bring workers to the feilds?
Yeah, whatever happened to that "free market" thing? Aren't employers with an excess of demand for labor over supply supposed to increase wages to a level that attracts workers?
If the Alabama farmers cannot produce a product without paying sub-standard wages to modern slaves or convicts, they need to go out of business.
Anyone else get sudden flashes of Shawshank Redemption?
Well as the warden of our State Penitentiary, Angola, or "The Farm" as it's called, once said, "Ya gotsta keep them damned prisoners workin hard all day, so they're quiet at night!"
It only RESEMBLES a plantation, I swear... I mean, at least they stopped burying the dead prisoners in cardboard boxes. What more do you want?
Despite all the excellent points made here, the bottom line is AGAIN, our instantaneous gratification society failed to go all the way with their "ideas." They sought and got a "quick fix" for what they put forth as illegal immigrants taking jobs away from citizens. Well, the citizens dont want to do this stuff either! Even the "unemployed" ones. So, NOW what do you do? Considering there was no PLAN for filling in the void that the illegals left when they were kicked out on their rear ends (from the country that states on the Statue of Liberty "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to be free"), I guess murderers, rapists, child molesters, and other so-called bottom feeders will just have to fill the void. So, who will get the blame if crimes are committed by these people while they are "working"? You can bet your last dime (if you still HAVE a dime to bet!) that it won't be those politicians who pushed through the anti-immigration laws!
Last summer Wisconsin fired State workers doing lawn service and replaced them with convicts on work release. With all of the OWS arrests we should soon have an ample supply of indentured servant labor for these menial tasks. No age or sex discrimination either. Pimps, prostitutes and child molesters are all welcome. The Utopian Republican has arrived.
Racism against Latinos extends to documented, as well as undocumented, workers in the South. So much for Southern hospitality.
http://www.splcenter.org/publications/under-siege-life-low-income-latinos-south/1-worker-abuse
lets see now, they want their cheap labor and they want to use convicts ,in the eyes of the GOP are both worthless ,and the GOP are the moral party here ,I smell greeed in the mississippi mud!
This is exactly what every thick skulled anti-immigration idiot doesn't understand. Do you like to eat? Do you like having fresh produce at the supermarket? What about fresh chicken? Thank an immigrant. Whether here legally or otherwise, immigrants are the reason we are able to live the lifestyles we have become accustomed to.
People bitch and moan about illegal immigration like it's the big bad wolf, but the simple truth is that without the droves of immigrants in this country doing the jobs that Americans simply won't, no matter how bad the economy is, we start to see some serious issues with the way we have come to expect our society to run.
Who would you rather have out in the fields harvesting and planting? A poor but hardworking immigrant who just wants to make a living, or a hardened convict who might escape and hurt someone? This is completely insane.
Been off the plantation long honey? Your rational sounds like a old southern belle rationalizing that the negro slaves are better-off here picking daddy's cotton than in the savanna of Africa poke each other with sticks.
WHAT?! That is not what I was saying at all. You took what I said and completely twisted it into something else and I resent the implication that I'm some kind of white supremacist holdover from the slave era.
Here's the bottom line. The agriculture industry needs people to plant and harvest crops. Americans won't do the work because it's back breaking labor. However, immigrants coming in from Mexico will because backbreaking labor here is still better than living in the hellhole that is anywhere not a tourist destination in Mexico. They can earn more money doing it here than they can in Mexico.
I was advocating leaving them the hell alone because their service is actually helping our economy and our way of life. They aren't hurting anyone, and they're just trying to scrape together a living for themselves. Not really sure how you went from that to me being a racist bigot, but whatever.
Maybe they should lock up the illegals and send them back to the farms to work for free. It is a crime to sneak here, no matter what the reasons, and that crime costs this country money, so why not have them to work in order to right some of the wrongs their crime cost us.
The Constitution prohibits involuntary servitude (slavery). I am not certain but that may apply to prisoners. If it does, then they cannot be forced to work. The only effect is that there may be no other prison jobs for the prisoner to earn money which is usually about 60 cents per hour. But at that rate, you can see why prison labor is even cheaper than illegal immigrants. However, most of these types of jobs pay by the load so prison labor could be a lot cheaper.
If the Republi-cons get their way, sixty cents an hour will be the average wage in this country in a few years.
The U. S. is moving quickly in the direction of becoming a third world country.
I think we already outlawed slave labor in the fields of Alabama? I missed the memo on that? That's ok. More of what Rachel called "The New Normal", I suppose....
I have worked in the Ag business for 20 plus years. I began with strawberries and worked up to Ag Entomologist. I have pulled weeds to picking produce for fresh market. I have watched PCUN unite thier farm workers to slowly improve the working enviroment. 20 years ago a farmer may have had one "privy" for an entire crew of 25+ workers (often a hole in the ground covered by a wooden building. And those were the more thoughtful farmers) - now they have one Johnny Pot per every ten workers, with wash water, soap and trash bins. I have worked alongside Mexican people with dreams and hopes that their children will not have to come to the States to be employed. Many made that dream a reality by living simply and sending as much money to their families and villages so thier children could get educated, get medical care, have clean water, have a better house, better food, better (fill in the blank). I have worked beside American people who only viewed the work as something they had to do to get a little extra money and much of their work was leaning on the hoes meant for weeding, checking thier watches, complaining about the heat, and simply waiting for the end of the day. (Not all, but most). An hourly wage allowed them to do this. More often than not, weeds that should have been pulled, grew taller by the end of the day. Weeding is not fun, but it is an essential part of crop growing and much of the work still needs to be done by hand. Many crops can be machined picked, unless a farmer wants his entire crop organic or for fresh market, and some groundcrops must be hand-picked. Hand- Picking requires skill in so many facets: Knowing how to screen for ripeness, size, disease, maggot or larvae infestation, natural flaws caused by birds and insects, while being quick at the actual picking and carrying the picked load to a central point to have it weighed or dumped into a bin. For hours each day, every day until there is no more to pick and the next field beckons. This is done in all types of weather - wet, cold, hot and dry. Not to mention this work gets done with aching backs, muscles, cut hands, frayed fingertips, hangnails, blisters, etc. Machines, on the other hand are indiscriminate and what it picks needs to be sorted through, either on the spot (as in caneberries/blueberries) or on a conveyor belt in a processing plant(beans/cauliflower). Workers are able to work in wet conditions without mucking up the field and groundcrop too much, allowing for two or more passes (strawberries/broccoli) while a machine does not allow for extra passes and is used primarily for groundcrops like beans, cauliflower, corn, and most grains.
I've heard the arguments about paying workers more and Americans will do this work. This arguement is only workable on paper. I ask anyone who begins this arguement with me if they are willing to work 8 + hours in extreme weather conditions at 10/hour? No. 15/hour? No. 20/hr? Welll, maybe. Will my health insurance be covered? Welll, maybe - if you and your family are willing to pay $5/pound for strawberries? Or 8/pound for broccolli? I often hear no way! Then good luck finding a farmer that will pay 20/hr with health bennies. The arguement is only valid if people are willing to pay the price that growing food crops actually costs a farmer - not to mention the added cost of distribution.
I have also found that the American person views this work as essentailly "stupid" and that the people doing this work are "stupid" because they don't know how to do anything else. The American (often male) sees driving a tractor (even a most basic one) or working a hyster a step above the field worker. But even these positions are beginning to be taken over by Mexican workers. To work as a field hand in the Ag industry does take skill, determination and a follow through ethic, but more than that, it takes a certain type of personality (this personality extends to most farmers as well) and that is a passion for what they are doing: a service to the larger society that is often degraded by that larger society; a pride in the set of skills that harvest food that is edible, so that someone can order a salad in New York and comment on how good it is. All because a Mexican or American person had pride in what they do. This is what has kept me in the Ag industry here in Oregon: a passion and pride in the fact that the crop I monitor today could be on a plate for a person with the title of President, or Ceo or everyday "mom" and "dad".
In Alabama, it will not matter if the person working the field is a convict or a legal or illegal Hispanic or of other nationality: it will not matter if that person is paid 0.25 cents/hr or $25/hr: if they veiw the work as "stupid" and have no passion for being of service to others, the work may not get done on time, under budget or at all.
To Alabama farmers - Good Luck to you and may you have a good crop year and a proud and service-orientated labor force. And prices that make it worth doing.