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Surprisingly well balanced article that highlights different viewpoints on the issue: >> Members of the $7.5 billion annual Washington agriculture industry hav

Surprisingly well balanced article that highlights different viewpoints on the issue: >> Members of the $7.5 billion annual Washington agriculture industry have long grappled with labor shortages Human pickers are getting scarce [..] “Young people do not want to work in farms, and elderly pickers are slowly retiring.” >> The work is hard and dangerous, and has long drawn Mexican workers to central Washington [..] He estimated half the state’s farmworkers are immigrants who are in the country illegally [..] many of them have settled in Washington and are productive members of the community >> ..the industry is deeply interested in alternatives to human labor.. >> The robotic pickers don’t get tired and can work 24 hours a day. >> “They are scared of losing their jobs to mechanization,” [..] “A robot is not going to rent a house, buy clothing for their kids, buy food in a grocery and reinvest that money in the local economy.”

fludlight 10y ago
>> “They are scared of losing their jobs to mechanization,” [..] “A robot is not going to rent a house, buy clothing for their kids, buy food in a grocery and reinvest that money in the local economy.” A robot won't do those things, but in the long run the ex-farm workers will move to urban areas where they'll get jobs, rent houses, buy clothing for their kids... That's what happened a century ago when the first wave of mechanization in the first world began a trend that reduced agricultural employment from >90% of all jobs to <5%. Everything will be fine and the everyone's standard of living will rise...in the long run. In the meantime, let's try to avoid a populist revolution.
- barsonme 10y ago
  > but in the long run the ex-farm workers will move to urban areas where they'll get jobs, rent houses, buy clothing for their kids... Let's take Washington state as an example. Where are the workers going to move? Seattle? Where rent is ridiculously high? What jobs will they get when more and more jobs these days require college degrees and manufacturing is going away? The job and housing market today is distinctly different from 100 years ago—we place higher emphasis on schooling and training and many jobs that do not require some form of schooling don't pay enough to support a family (mostly because they're not designed to). Please don't construe my comment as endorsing some sort of populist revolution. I just find it very hard to believe hordes of migrant workers (many of which are here illegally, don't speak much English, perhaps have little schooling, etc.) will just waltz on into cities and out of thin air procure jobs that pay enough to cover rent, food, and clothing—especially when they only reason they can support a family on an apple picker's salary of a couple hundred bucks a day is because they live in the cheapest part of the state. I mean, if it was that easy why wouldn't they do it already? Cities offer vastly more resources for poor folk than central Washington orchards do, so all they gain from picking apples is familiarity and perhaps the support network of working with similar people.
  - fludlight 10y ago
    The reason I mentioned the long run and a populist revolutionist because it takes many years for the labor force to adjust. An entire generation that can't find productive jobs for a decade is a very dangerous thing. This led to considerable political turmoil in the US in the 1930s. Unfortunately, I see something similar on the horizon in the service sector.

fludlight 10y ago

>> “They are scared of losing their jobs to mechanization,” [..] “A robot is not going to rent a house, buy clothing for their kids, buy food in a grocery and reinvest that money in the local economy.” A robot won't do those things, but in the long run the ex-farm workers will move to urban areas where they'll get jobs, rent houses, buy clothing for their kids... That's what happened a century ago when the first wave of mechanization in the first world began a trend that reduced agricultural employment from >90% of all jobs to <5%. Everything will be fine and the everyone's standard of living will rise...in the long run. In the meantime, let's try to avoid a populist revolution.

barsonme 10y ago
> but in the long run the ex-farm workers will move to urban areas where they'll get jobs, rent houses, buy clothing for their kids... Let's take Washington state as an example. Where are the workers going to move? Seattle? Where rent is ridiculously high? What jobs will they get when more and more jobs these days require college degrees and manufacturing is going away? The job and housing market today is distinctly different from 100 years ago—we place higher emphasis on schooling and training and many jobs that do not require some form of schooling don't pay enough to support a family (mostly because they're not designed to). Please don't construe my comment as endorsing some sort of populist revolution. I just find it very hard to believe hordes of migrant workers (many of which are here illegally, don't speak much English, perhaps have little schooling, etc.) will just waltz on into cities and out of thin air procure jobs that pay enough to cover rent, food, and clothing—especially when they only reason they can support a family on an apple picker's salary of a couple hundred bucks a day is because they live in the cheapest part of the state. I mean, if it was that easy why wouldn't they do it already? Cities offer vastly more resources for poor folk than central Washington orchards do, so all they gain from picking apples is familiarity and perhaps the support network of working with similar people.
- fludlight 10y ago
  The reason I mentioned the long run and a populist revolutionist because it takes many years for the labor force to adjust. An entire generation that can't find productive jobs for a decade is a very dangerous thing. This led to considerable political turmoil in the US in the 1930s. Unfortunately, I see something similar on the horizon in the service sector.