Firedog Lake - Wednesday October 13, 2010
Georgia Republican Senator Saxby Chambliss introduced a Agribusiness bill to the Senate last week. The HARVEST act: here
Read the Harvest act "press release":
The Harvest act would deny any path for citizenship to farm workers. Instead, even if they work year-round they would have no claims to citizenship. This means that laborers from other countries will never be citizens with the benefits of citizens.
Second the Harvest act would streamline the lie that farm work is accessible to citizens. The Harvest act seeks to blame american workers for reason they aren’t working on the farm. Read Dan Rather’s piece here.
H-2a Labor is captive labor. Such laborers live in an unheated shed, often without bedding. They eat whatever the farmer gives them. The farmer then charges room and board and transportation against their wages. The other part of Captive labor is the threat of unemployment. H-2a labor employees can be terminated at will. How exactly are terminated employees supposed to get home? How are they even going to collect a paycheck after they are fired. Captive indeed.
We know this story. Giant farms get to write the legislation they need and damn the public interest.
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