12-28 IAN Apple Outrage

 Would you go to work for between $16 and $20 per hour? If my math serves me, that’s between $2560-$3200/month.

  Continuing an outrageous conversation that I had with fruit producer Tom Merkle I wanted to get more specific about opportunities that exist against opportunities not taken. “We do almost everything with mechanical service. There is a big cost savings for labor. If I understand things correctly over the state of Washington there have been signs saying apple pickers wanted  and we are in this very down economy, people on the streets with card board signs, explain  that to me, can they make a decent day’s wage while picking apples? Yes.  We can get those people to work  so we use the H2A program. We bring 1000 people up from Mexico,  we bus them in, we house them and bus them back.  They are averaging $16-$20 an hour all summer long. And people who are willing to come to work and work hard they can make $15 to $20 an hour. I am sure that some of them weren’t even making that much where they worked before and they are treated well. It is not like it is slave labor, we are just trying to get a day’s work in.  These others make good money, they are happy, and they go home. The government doesn’t make it real easy to bring those H2A workers in,  it’s a big hassle to that,  it is expensive. The cost of this program is beneficial to us because we can get our fruit into storage in a timely manner and that way we can bring a better product out to the public.  A thought just dawned on me. Maybe you can give me a couple of your cards. I will hand them out for you. No they don’t want to work. We have offered them jobs before and they say no we can make more money sitting on the street corner.”