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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • When you say the workers don’t want it to end, what they really don’t want to end surely is their ability to work and earn money in the country, not their status of illegality and their lack of enforceable rights.

    100% what I wanted to make clear I was saying in my initial comment that I worried was not clear. The “arrangement” I referred to was “consensual farm work”, not “tacitly sanctioned ignoring of labor laws and worker exploitation”.

    Purely for the discussion: I do think the comparison to child labor is off in this case, even though I agree about the point of needing a true viable alternative.
    I would draw the comparison more to a worker in a criminal enterprise than to child mine workers.
    The work they chose is their best choice, but they could have realistically chosen differently.
    Within reason people can choose risky or dangerous things, as long as best doesn’t mean only.


  • That doesn’t sound like he conceded to Jones though, since he rejected his request.

    The auction not immediately changing anything is just how it goes, it’s not a concession to Jones. The onion won the auction, but the sale hasn’t completed. The judge letting them keep operating is both decent to the employees, and routine to not damage an asset while the sale is being handled.

    Imagine it’s a grocery store rather that a shitty news outlet. You buy it for $1 million, but the judge made the previous owners lock the doors and keep workers from showing up. You now have a damaged asset filled with rotten fruit and melted ice cream that you wouldn’t have paid that much for.


  • I really don’t think you could reasonably argue that the slaves in the US were compensated and okay with their conditions. For one, there were slave rebellions, and none of them asked to take part in the system or were given the option to leave.

    I do get what you’re saying though, and we do seem to be in ultimate agreement.

    We have a legal framework for it in the US as well, it’s just slow and inefficient with weird quotas that make people want to abandon the system. It undermines itself.
    We do also have at least one prominent union for farm workers, including undocumented farm workers.
    https://ufw.org/ The existence of a labor union with a history of real impact, as well as the workers seeking the work, is part of why I think the slavery comparison is misguided.

    Equating immigrant farm labor to slavery creates the notion that we should abolish it entirely, which hurts both us and them, when the problem isn’t “immigrants doing farm work”, it’s the massive exploitation hazard which leads to too many opportunities for farm labor to have said terrible working conditions.


  • I would say there’s big difference between child labor, where the child can’t consent to work and we’ve societally decided that no child should be working at all, and an adult choosing to work and someone exploiting their need to deny them the worker protections they deserve.

    To be clear, I’m not saying to continue allowing farms to hire undocumented workers and eschew worker protections and proper payments.
    I’m saying that there’s clearly a need for farm workers that isn’t being met domestically. We should increase our efforts to ensure that the workers filling those roles are protected and not exploited, and are given the opportunity to become permanent citizens, since they clearly play an important role in our society.


  • So, I do think what they’re doing is shitty, and the way our government handles undocumented farm workers is shitty and immoral, but I also think it’s not quite right to call the arrangement “slave-like”.

    The workers are getting paid, and they’re getting paid enough to make them willing to violate immigration law, and in the case of undocumented migrant workers enough for them to enter the country and travel around it, often returning to the same places to work again.

    It is very much exploitative and taking advantage of the worse economic situation elsewhere and their willingness to eschew what we consider basic worker protections.

    Equating the arrangement to slavery creates the impression that it might be worth it to crack down hard to alleviate the moral injustice of the entire arrangement, despite the impact it will have on everyone involved.
    A better tactic that relieves the gross injustice without hurting the people being wronged or ourselves is to make it easier for farm workers to enter the country in a safe way that allows them to benefit from the protections we believe workers should get, as well as the services we provide, like WIC. Amnesty, a path to legal residency or the citizenship process, and a harsher crackdown on businesses that look to bypass those protections.

    Even the workers don’t want the arrangement to end, which tells me we need to bolster the protections they’re missing, not end the system entirely.


  • The sushi I see sold in the stores near me is usually restocked a few times during the day since they keep smaller quantities on hand, usually early morning, late morning and late afternoon, to get people for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
    I also think it’s a pretty high margin food. You usually just need a little veggies and some rice, and optionally a pretty small amount of fish for the price you pay.
    One person can then prepare two or three rolls at once in a couple of minutes.

    It’s not great sushi usually, but it’s at least better than the majority of grab and go foods.



  • U.S. Representative John Duarte, a Republican and fourth-generation farmer in California’s Central Valley, said farms in the area depend on immigrants in the U.S. illegally and that small towns would collapse if those workers were deported. Duarte’s congressional seat is one of a handful of close races where a winner has yet to be declared. Duarte said the Trump administration should pledge that immigrant workers in the country for five years or longer with no criminal record will not be targeted and look at avenues to permanent legal status.

    Wow, it’s almost like when faced with the consequences of your profoundly cruel and destructive rhetoric, suddenly some form of tempered, compassionate approach seems like a good idea. 🙄

    Assholes.