CA farmers not paying market rate for labor

[Vonz90]

http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2017/05/ ... -shortage/

Up your salary, you will find workers. If you cannot do so profitably, then your business model is flawed. This is what everyone else in the country has to deal with, you can too.

[Weetabix]

Well, if I can get $15/hr for either doing back breaking work in the sun or for sitting behind a counter collecting people's money at a convenience store, I might not do the ag work either.

Part of the problem seems to be that the State of CA raised minimum wage, so the labor market is distorted.

Part of the problem is that the farmers decided to hitch their wagon to illegal immigrant labor, figuring the supply would never dry up.

Maybe if CA would get over this minimum wage silliness, and if there were some accommodation for migrant worker visas, where they were monitored and went back at the end of their visa, things could work out.

[randy]

...the commodities we produce are being produced in other countries a lot cheaper than they’re produced here.

I haven't studied the facts in detail, but I got a sneaking hunch those crops are being produced a lot cheaper in other states that don't have California legislature and governor dictating magic unicorn style economic labor and tax policies.

[Jered]

There's a visa for temporary farm workers. It's called the H2A.

Methinks that this farmer was too dependent on illegal immigrant labor and doesn't want to go about things properly.

[Kommander]

While the CA regulations are silly it sounds like these guys have a fundamentally​ flawed business model. On one hand they are complaining that the new minimum wage is going to cost them, and then they complain that not enough people are coming to work for them so they have to raise wages on their own. You can't blame both of these issues for you problem. It's one of the other, and they are coming across, at least in the article, as economically illiterate asshats.

[BDK]

They are also going to be in a distorted market because many of the poor do not "have" to work.

[Odahi]

“If we can’t change the way we’re doing business, we’re at risk,” said Brad Goehring, a fourth-generation wine grape grower in Lodi.

It seems his problem has become obvious, even to him. Kinda sucks when the third-world peons you've been relying on (exploiting) for four generations finally get smart, and get educated. I suggest they look to France, which has been dong the wine grapes thing for a while. Or Germany. California seems enamored with the European model in so many other things, send Governor Moonbeam over there to do some fact-finding. Maybe they'll even get lucky and he'll decide to stay. My sympathy for California wine grape growers can be measured in nano-give-a-shits.

[evan price]

Perhaps some of those well-educated young folks can get jobs as copy editors, because based on that article, there aren't any editors at THAT paper. Sentence structure, punctuation, weird abuse...it had it all.

[MiddleAgedKen]

Perhaps some of those well-educated young folks can get jobs as copy editors, because based on that article, there aren't any editors at THAT paper. Sentence structure, punctuation, weird abuse...it had it all.

I'm not sure some of these papers even have a copy desk any more. It doesn't sell soap or help you be first with the story.

[TabascoKid]

There's a visa for temporary farm workers. It's called the H2A.

Methinks that this farmer was too dependent on illegal immigrant labor and doesn't want to go about things properly.

There have been stories in the MSM recently that tell about farmers who are trying H2A and finding violent, sometimes criminal, opposition from the local community. H2A makes the farmer responsible for housing. One farmer built dorms for his visa holders against the wishes if the townsfolk and saw them burnt down before they were finished.