Around 75% of immigrant farm workers in Bakersfield, California, ditched their shifts after Trump ramped up his threats by removing protections against ICE raids in “sensitive areas,” including schools and workplaces.
Around 75% of immigrant farm workers in Bakersfield, California, ditched their shifts after Trump ramped up his threats by removing protections against ICE raids in “sensitive areas,” including schools and workplaces.
This also highlight how many companies are taking advantage of these people in a modern form of slavery…
Funny how we never demonize the fucking companies taking advantage of these people.
I’m torn.
Obviously taking advantage of cheap, desperate labor to maximize profit is wrong.
On the other hand, the whole thing feels like a deliberate act by the ruling class to turn the working class against each other. I’m hesitant to hate on farmers when billionaires are also suppressing wages so harshly all of society.
I’m more raging against the corporations that have no problem benefiting off undocumented workers, underpaying and exploiting.
Any individual farmer out there is trying to stay afloat is competing with John Deere and Monsanto already
Nothing to be torn about: there are no “farmers” anymore, just Big Ag (Tyson, General Mills, Bayer (formerly Monsanto), etc.).
I had no idea im not a farmer anymore.
Now what should i do with all these cows and corn?
Are you genuinely independent, selling your produce at roadside stands/farmer’s markets/directly to restaurants/etc., or are you under the thumb of Big Ag anyway* even though you aren’t literally an employee of them?
When I claim that the vast majority of people who call themselves “farmers” these days are in the latter situation, am I wrong?
(* Yes I know that’s about chickens, not beef or corn. Are you gonna tell me the agribusinesses concerned with those crops don’t have similar issues?)
I think a lot of them are here for the jobs, because they couldn’t make that much money in their home country.
And I think that’s intentional too.
In Canada too, we just gussie it up as the “temporary foreign workers” program, and bring immigrants over here for a while to do shit jobs we white people don’t want to do, like work in Tim Hortons or drive for Uber, and leave them trying to afford housing and cost of living, and many just come here and move into shelters, or live in extremely large family settings, which makes locals hate them more because of the housing crisis.
I think immigration needs huge reform in Canada, and that the pathways to citizenship through massive tuition fees bumping out citizens from higher education and using diploma mill “colleges” need to be closed, but the temporary worker program is just slightly polished up slavery and nothing more. If we’re going to offer immigration it should be to skilled people who can work in their field here and can afford to live here, and not just dangling scraps in front of vulnerable people because it’s somewhat better than living in an underdeveloped country’s slums so they can be our slaves, while we all fight over housing and resent each other. At least the migrant agricultural worker program doesn’t hide the fact it is farm labour and temporary.
fuck that. we shouldn’t only be open to one class of immigrant. I don’t pretend to have answers but I know that this idea further a class hierarchy and as such is crap.
I think it should be until housing and services can keep pace with the huge influx of immigrants we got in the last two years. It’s one thing to have a subspecialist physician apply to move here, that’s very needed all the time, but also they’re not going to live off of the social welfare net because they’ll make liveable salaries and be able to buy a home.
“they” are humans who have a far worse life somewhere else just because of the birth lottery. who are you to say they don’t deserve the life you get to have based on pure luck?
But people who are citizens here are living in tents. We have encampments all over my city. We have to take care of people who live here first. And we’re not. Sadly the government let housing and infrastructure lag far behind the capacity needed to take care of everyone who is already here. We can’t take more people when we don’t have space for the ones who are here.