cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/32291701
The reason is simple: an increase in immigration enforcement, including high-profile ICE raids, shook Texas farm workers to their core. The news filtered fast that workers—regardless of legal status—chose safety over a salary.
Farmers, who had been working with their crews for decades, described the loss as “devastating” and “unprecedented.” This is alarming as most farms are founded upon immigrant labor, both legal and illegal, creating a domino effect for the food system as a whole.
. . . When farm workers vanish, the effects are felt far beyond the fields. Livestock is untended, crops go unpicked, food production declines, and food prices dramatically increase. In Texas alone, where specialty vegetables and fruits must be hand-picked, worker shortages jeopardize entire harvest seasons.
This results in fewer foods on grocery store shelves, higher prices for families nationwide, and a greater reliance on imports. Threads on Reddit and YouTube are already predicting price hikes and empty produce shelves.
The Texas farmers…“How can Biden do this to us?”
Every single one of these people in every story still supports Trump. Makes no sense.
Cult
I think it boils down to this…
Hardcore MAGA can’t admit when they’re wrong. These are the parents that never say sorry to their kids. They are ALWAYS right. They will be homeless on the street before Trump did this to them. They’re team players, not individuals with a compass.
Just sheep.
Cipolla explains why, see rule 3 and also why you don’t understand, see rule 4
These are Cipolla’s five fundamental laws of stupidity:
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Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
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The probability that a certain person (will) be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.
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A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.
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Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places, and under any circumstances, to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.
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A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.
The difference between genius and stupidity is that genius has its limits.
Also, you can’t make things idiot proof, they will always build a bigger idiot.
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Thanks Obama.
Have the day you voted for, Texas.
Ironic that about 40% of them didn’t vote, so I sincerely hope those 40% are getting rat fucked like the rest of us who voted for sanity are.
This is the ultimate Texan dog-that-caught-the-car moment. I remember talking about this in school in Texas 25 years ago when Republicans were complaining about immigration. Several students brought up that the farms are all tended by “seasonal workers,” which meant immigrant labor, so what was the Republican answer to that? They didn’t have one, of course, not a realistic one. It was the same talking points then as now of “American workers” filling the gap, and even then those jobs didn’t pay a living wage, so no American would take them. I bet they pay worse now.
They had 25 years to figure this out, but of course they had no intention of figuring it out.
They’re gonna arrest the immigrant farm workers and then lease them right back to the same farms as slaves.
There it is. This is how the money flows. Private prison labor.
They didn’t have one, of course, not a realistic one.
When I try to have discussions around this I often take elements of their language and point out that market forces make it unattractive for citizens to work there, but it can be good for immigrants. Sometimes they get it, but often too indoctrinated into the republican party to act differently.
Very predictable result of criminalizing the people who do the work.
a corporation that cannot pay labor what it requires (ie the market) should choose: shut down or shut down. profit is stolen wage, too. So… yeah.
Remember kids: corporations are not people. Unlike babies, corporations can be thrown out with the bath water.
Pay labor a living wage or get fucked.
Totally get it, super on board, but uh, to circle back to the here and now for a second, we kinda need food? So the situation as it is right now really blows.
Some people are joking about $70 salads, but also there is a point in there. Farming sucks ass a job and if you paid people enough to incentivise folks to do it, that’s something not a lot of farmers can do, especially small ones.
So what would an ideal solution be with the technology we have now?
Syndicalism. Farmers co-ops. Food from your lawn.
Not really elaborating on that much… Not everyone can afford to drive out to the country to work on a farm for food, and a lot of people don’t have lawns.
I’m not saying a post reply on lemmy will cover what I mean or fix everything ; but my examples are things we can start with and they don’t hurt. Recovery from capitalism will take a long time.
Look, I’m all for dismantling capitalism, but you do your cause disservice if you criticize something, act like you have the answers, and then don’t deliver. If you don’t have the answers just say so up front.
is it a disservice to the slave to leave his chains or even discuss it, even if he has nowhere to go after?
“Complaining about a problem without posing a solution is called whining.” Teddy Roosevelt
I’m not saying to not discuss it. I’m not saying to stay a slave.
When were talking about people needing to eat, though, you’re gonna need some solutions if you want to enact change. No one can do a revolution on an empty stomach, and if you’re going to hand wave basic survival, you’re not going to get anyone to follow you.
Have you talked to the average American about agriculture? They would starve themselves in a few months.
Also, you would have to come up with rules on who grows what and how seed savings would work. You need to keep things that can cross pollinate away from each other.
Now you know the point of Leviticus 19:19 and Deuteronomy 22:9.
Done. Your salad is now $74.99
if that’s what means labor gets a living wage (which also assumes I get one), and the corporation makes no profit and the workers own the means of production- cool!
Sounds like capitalism has failed then at that point. Seize the means brother.
Cows eat salad…here’s your $3900.99 double McChicken, 1/4 pounder delight with bacon bits sir! It’s served over a Mexican cheese platen…oh don’t eat the platen! That’s just to keep the moisture in!
Funny how no part of the article mentioned hundreds of eager American workers rushing into those farm jobs. Nor the farmers/ranchers deciding they’d have to raise their prices and their pay rates.
That’s probably because markets aren’t going to pay more for the crops, and nobody wants to work that hard except people with no other options.
It’s the same thing after brexit. I cant find the source anymore. But something like 6000 non-immigrants signed up for farm work and only like ten showed up. And none stayed longer than two days. So it’s not like they didn’t have a recent example of how this would turn out.
Farmers will never learn, those people are the only ones willing to do the work. White kids have been raised that that work is beneath them
It isn’t beneath me. I just don’t think I could physically do it as a job. Also, the pay is bad. So, it’s pretty low on my job list. I’d rather work a fast food job. And I never want to work one again.
Not good lay plus that job sucks, it’s beneath you.
I feel like the not being able to physically do it matters a bit more, but maybe you’re right. I don’t look down on people that do those jobs, because it’s something that needs to get done, just like teachers, but they aren’t jobs I’d recommend for anyone.
I feel like the not being able to physically do it matters a bit more,
This is what slavers said, too.
Sorry, my mouth is already full from what I actually said.
Isn’t it kind of ableist to assume that when somebody says they are “not able to physically do” a job, that they’re lazy or classist? For all we know, they could have mobility issues or be unable to do sustained manual labor.
I assume that if I tried my hand at farming, the bosses won’t let me take enough water or breaks to maintain my health. Farm work is backbreaking, everyone should be given enough pay, healthcare, and rest to ensure their wellbeing. Unfortunately, dickheads think that fair work standards are not important.
It is time for Texas and company to learn that their stupidity has consequences.
Every job deserves a living wage and the government should be providing healthcare. Agriculture needing to be substituted by undocumented workers is a sign of deeper issues with the economic system.
That yes, but also more.
One positive aspect of social media is showing the young how the world really works, to an extent I think.
Poor immigrants are generally in a more uninformed and desperate survival situation. Many probably aren’t of the mindset “fuck slaving away 14hrs a day for shit pay to make a billionaire richer”. They just generally don’t think that way yet.
I personally would rather die than be forced to work in those conditions. I sympathize with them and wish they didn’t have to either. But they’re still currently the ones more desperate and willing to suffer.
I would be willing to help with farm work however, if the pay was significantly better, 4-6hrs per day, 2-3 days per week. But normalizing this would necessitate eradicating billionaires and even hundred millionaires. Obviously not gonna happen.
I’m just sayin’ it’s more than just white kids are lazy. At least I hope so.
Disagree. There are plenty of people who would do the work, they’re just not willing to do it for the amount farmers are willing to pay.
Also, you’d have to be insane to do outside work in both Florida and Texas, now that both states have got rid of mandated water breaks for outdoor workers.
Not to mention going there. Except for people desperate for work, who in their right mind would travel to magastan out in the country m, to shave away with no water or bathroom breaks, in the hot sun all day without even water for minimum wage? There are just so many reasons for an immediate no
Nice try, racist. Stop splitting the working class up like that. Labor should be paid a living wage and any corp what cannot do that should fail. Race of the worker is irrelevant.
Capitalists have you convinced it is different between races but only because that distraction keeps capitalists exploiting the working class folk.
Ain’t no war but class war.
This is not a problem for big ag. That’s why no regional or national ag-orgs are complaining. This is not a face eating leopard moment, sadly.
Campaneros still need to work. The pattern at the moment is they stay away for a few days after a raid, but then return. This benefits their bosses. Previously there were work stoppages to pressure bosses to raise the $/piece rate. Not now.
Plus the regime has promised to replace the workers lost to their ethnic cleansing campaign with an expanded H2a visa program - after having stripped away many of the already meager protections against wage theft.
The plantation lords know they’re getting cheaper, more exploitable labor.
I was talking to a friend there and he told me people in the suburbs are having trouble getting their lawns mowed now. So glad I got out of there.
To all those farmers, the only thing I could possibly say is,
“I hope you have the day you voted for”.
Ain’t you redneck chucklefucks glad you voted red? Enjoy losing your farm.
But where did the workers go?
“Where did the lighter fluid come from?”
It’d be funny if it wasn’t going to affect the rest of the population that didn’t vote for a psychotic nutjob.
Does this mean we will see unemployment numbers go down in the coming weeks/months?
I’m not asking with any agenda, I’m just curious if it will end up measured in that way.
I don’t think undocumented people are included in labor statistics.
So I don’t think this will look bad on paper. No farmers are prepared to pay fair wages to staff so it’s most likely good food will sit in fields and rot as the prices rise at the supermarket.
I wonder whether the seasonal workers are included either. The legal workers are likely staying away and you can’t be unemployed if you’re only there with a job
