July 04, 2007

Alan Bjerga/Bloomberg propaganda: wheat farmers want cheap foreign labor

For years, newspapers have been printing outright propaganda pieces with growers complaining that unless they get cheap foreign labor crops will rot in the fields. However, Alan Bjerga of Bloomberg offers a new twist: this time it's wheat farmers doing the whining ("U.S. Wheat Farmers Face Grim Harvests as Immigration Bill Dies", link). In the article he takes everything those farmers say at face value, and, if he asked them why they don't simply raise their rates it's not noted:

[Thomas Murphy, an Irishman who leads a crew of combine operators from the U.K.]'s crew and 2,500 other skilled, legal immigrants who come from places such as South Africa, Australia and New Zealand to cut grain are among the most productive workers in the U.S., gathering one-third of all the wheat in a $7.7 billion market.

That's why farmers and the companies that hire the crews say Congress's failure last week to overhaul the immigration laws will heighten an already intense labor shortage by preventing them from importing more of the English-speaking workers, even as the need for them grows. That may lower crop yields, raise food prices and force some growers out of business, they say.

People say lots of things. A real reporter tries to find out whether they're telling the truth or not. Bjerga does not.

"You'll have labor that simply doesn't get done," U.S. Agriculture Secretary Mike Johanns said in a June 28 interview after the Senate rejected the legislation. "We have a system that doesn't work very well, so they're really struggling."

...Grain-cutters say they need more of the skilled workers: Their understaffed crews are falling behind in the harvest, leaving crops vulnerable to disease and weather. The wheat harvest was 40 percent complete as of July 1, compared with 62 percent at the same time in 2006, the U.S. Department of Agriculture says. That's mostly because of poor weather.

...U.S. wheat was worth more than the labor-intensive output of grapes, tomatoes and apples combined in 2006, according to the USDA.

...[The H2A visas they use] require employers to buy newspaper and radio advertisements to prove that efforts to hire domestic workers were unsuccessful. That slows hiring and increases costs. Once a foreign worker arrives, the employer must pay the government-set prevailing wage and provide free housing.

...[The AgJobs part of the Senate bill] would also have eased ad requirements, reduced paperwork that delays visas, and permitted employers to give workers housing allowances rather than housing, saving costs.

...Tight job markets in Plains states, where unemployment runs below the rest of the U.S., also make domestic recruitment difficult, as does the seasonal, itinerant nature of harvest work, Baker said.

...For that, a worker bunks with crewmates in a mobile trailer for free while seeing the U.S. heartland on net pay of about $1,800 per month. The high-quality, low-cost labor "keeps costs down and keeps the producer profitable, which keeps the U.S. competitive in the world market," said Kenneth Hobbie, who heads the U.S. Grains Council, a Washington-based group that represents Archer Daniels, Cargill and other companies.

"Any American who would be good at this can find something with better hours and holidays off," [a harvester] said...

Obviously, if Alan Bjerga were a real reporter and not simply a paid propagandist he would have tried to find out the impact of those harvesters raising their rates in order to attract U.S. workers.

Posted to Immigration2007a at July 4, 2007 10:08 AM