• ricecake@sh.itjust.works
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    5
    ·
    6 months ago

    Again, that “government overhead” is the “Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act” and the rules of the H-2A visa program which ensures that you do crazy things like “pay the workers fairly”, “don’t discriminate”, and “don’t retaliate against workers whom you abused”.

    It sucks for them that they can’t turn a profit without criminally exploiting migrant farm workers, but I don’t really give a damn.

    Instead of pushing for the ability to mistreat workers, push for import bans on agricultural products from nations that lack reasonable parity in worker protection.
    I like chocolate less than I like an absence of slavery.

    • CableMonster@lemmy.ml
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      6 months ago

      I think the issue that your argument has that you are equating regulations that are overboard with reglations that actually protect people. For example the act you are referring to makes it so that the compensation farms have to pay to foreign workers is much higher than domestic workers. It has nothing to do with “criminally exploiting migrants”.

      • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        6 months ago

        Are you referring to how you have to pay foreign workers the average of what domestic workers make? Also known as “you can’t use foreign labor to depress regional wages”? Otherwise you’re gonna have to provide a citation.

        If you’re complaining that you can’t afford to hire foreign workers because they’re more expensive than domestic, you can just … Hire domestic?
        If you’re still complaining, it makes it harder to argue that you aren’t aiming to hire foreign farm workers to undercut minimum wage laws.

        • CableMonster@lemmy.ml
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          6 months ago

          The min wage for foreign farm workers vary by state but are in the ballpark of $15/hr must include free housing and a bunch of other things. There is not enough domestic labor for farms, it is not depresssing any wages.

          • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            ·
            6 months ago

            Well, I’d certainly hope it’s not depressing wages, since the point of the law was to keep it from doing that in the first place. Sounds like the law is working to keep the cost of foreign and domestic workers in line, so no problem there.

            It really just sounds like you’re unhappy that farmers can’t import foreign laborers at poverty prices, and instead have to pay them fairly, or god forbid pay an attractive wage to domestic workers.

            You’re really not making a good case for “paying migrant workers fairly, and giving them shelter after they travel from another country to work for you is unjust government regulation”.
            This is seriously not sounding like brazen government overreach, just basic worker protections.