3 ms·

Daily reminder of 3 things: 1. There is never a "labor shortage". There is only "insufficient wages"; 2. In the US in particular, the agricultural sector woul

by jmyeet 2y ago

Daily reminder of 3 things: 1. There is never a "labor shortage". There is only "insufficient wages"; 2. In the US in particular, the agricultural sector would collapse without undocumented migrants; 3. Companies love migrants being undocumented because it suppresses wages for both documented and undocumented workers. We used to have extensive programs for temporary workers (eg the Bracero program [1]). Automation is going to be a huge issue in the coming years and there are two ways it could go. The first way is the capitalist way. That is that workers will be laiid off. Unemployment will be used to suppress wages further. Why? So the capitalists can eke out a few extra dollars in profit. This is the dystopian view and the one I consider most likely. The second way is tha automation makes work easier and take less time. This is essentially the socialist way. This could vastly improve everyone's lives. After all, making it so people don't actually have to work dangerous or just horrible agriculture jobs (or in an Amazon warehouse for that matter). I consider this, given the current political climate, to be highly unlikely. Our society is rapidly marching towards a future when nobody owns anything (particularly housing). You'll live at the whims of whoever provides worker housing. You'll largely work in service jobs that haven't been automated (yet) at low wages. Things like aged care and maintaining those estates you don't own but are granted housing on. Welcome to neofeudalism. [1]: https://guides.loc.gov/latinx-civil-rights/bracero-program https://guides.loc.gov/latinx-civil-rights/bracero-program

phyzix5761 2y ago
All migrant agricultural workers are documented. They have to come through a H-2A visa program. This visa runs background and criminal checks on the applicants before they're approved.
- jmyeet 2y ago
  From [1]: > The agricultural sector in the United States relies on foreign workers; 86 percent of agricultural workers [3] in the United States are foreign-born and 45 percent of all US agricultural workers are undocumented. This is particularly rife in the meatpacking and agricultural industries. The employers themselves call in ICE raids when their workers start demanding fair wages with little to no consequence. [1]: https://cmsny.org/agricultural-workers-rosenbloom-083022/ https://cmsny.org/agricultural-workers-rosenbloom-083022/
- Ferret7446 2y ago
  > All migrant agricultural workers are documented. They have to come through a H-2A visa program. This is such a bizarre claim. Are you not aware of the existence of illegal/undocumented immigrants? Or their prevalence in agriculture?
_bin_ 2y ago
This is a silly take. There can in fact be a labor shortage and there sometimes is. It's quite possible if everyone started bidding up wages this would still be the case. Witness fast food joints basically doubling their wages over the past few years and still having "help wanted" signs in the windows. And you're acting as though any level of wages is economically sensible, and that it wouldn't kill consumers to have a 50% wage increase passed on. Yes, it probably would. Which is why it's good they're replacing them with automation rather than continuing to lean on illegals. If a job is fully replaceable with automation, why do you believe it should simply be "made easier" with no cuts to wages, keeping people employed for no particular reason? I think a better discussion is what we can do with the growing chunk of the population who are economically useless and refuse to pick up new skills to make themselves useful.

by jmyeet 2y ago

phyzix5761 2y ago

All migrant agricultural workers are documented. They have to come through a H-2A visa program. This visa runs background and criminal checks on the applicants before they're approved.

jmyeet 2y ago
From [1]: > The agricultural sector in the United States relies on foreign workers; 86 percent of agricultural workers [3] in the United States are foreign-born and 45 percent of all US agricultural workers are undocumented. This is particularly rife in the meatpacking and agricultural industries. The employers themselves call in ICE raids when their workers start demanding fair wages with little to no consequence. [1]: https://cmsny.org/agricultural-workers-rosenbloom-083022/ https://cmsny.org/agricultural-workers-rosenbloom-083022/
Ferret7446 2y ago
> All migrant agricultural workers are documented. They have to come through a H-2A visa program. This is such a bizarre claim. Are you not aware of the existence of illegal/undocumented immigrants? Or their prevalence in agriculture?

_bin_ 2y ago

This is a silly take. There can in fact be a labor shortage and there sometimes is. It's quite possible if everyone started bidding up wages this would still be the case. Witness fast food joints basically doubling their wages over the past few years and still having "help wanted" signs in the windows. And you're acting as though any level of wages is economically sensible, and that it wouldn't kill consumers to have a 50% wage increase passed on. Yes, it probably would. Which is why it's good they're replacing them with automation rather than continuing to lean on illegals. If a job is fully replaceable with automation, why do you believe it should simply be "made easier" with no cuts to wages, keeping people employed for no particular reason? I think a better discussion is what we can do with the growing chunk of the population who are economically useless and refuse to pick up new skills to make themselves useful.