EXCERPT from Columbus Dispatch regarding workforce in Ohio nurseries is 75% latino:
The growth in the number of Latino employees is "real simple," said Jerry Fultz, general manager of Acorn Farms, a 700-acre wholesale business in Galena.
"Our local labor force isn't able to supply us with the workers," Fultz said. About 90 of Acorn's 158 employees are Latino.
"It's pretty well-documented that a lot of jobs in the nursery and landscape industry go unfilled by American laborers," said Bill Stalter, director of the Ohio Nursery and Landscape Association. It's become more pressing as nursery sales have grown, Stalter said.
The study found that 45 percent of those surveyed make between $6 and $7.99 per hour. Another 33 percent make $8 to $9.99 per hour.
Latinos are taking the jobs because "it's an entry-level-type job; it's not very well- paid," said Beatriz Maya, director of Midwest operations for the Farm Labor Organizing Committee of the AFL-CIO, based in Toledo.
2007-07-31
01:33:46
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Not so looney afterall
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