Would you pick oranges?

Question

So the price of orange juice is rising, due to a decrease in immigrant workers in Florida. Nearly 1/3 of the oranges have gone unpicked for the season. Would YOU leave your country to pick oranges for minimum wage? What say you to this?

By the way, I never shared my view on this, so there is no reason to get dumb. Also, don't you think if there was a legal way for these people to support their families in their own country, don't you think they would do it?! Instead of risking getting shot or deported...? All I did was ask a question, and you people that act crazy and cuss people out need to get over yourself.

Answer 1

No one would do it in reality, if you are on this forum on a computer, then you obviously have a good cozy job in an office, or are a kid that doesn't have to deal with work yet. So to say yes I would, that is ridiculus, no they wouldn't, if they got fired or layed off, they would go look for a job of the same pay and same work they did before, they wouldn't run to the fields and pick oranges.

Answer 2

You don't know nothing about farms-stick to toys!



"Phillip Martin, an economist at the University of California, Davis, has demolished the argument that a crackdown on illegals would ruin it, or be a hardship to consumers. Most farming — livestock, grains, etc. — doesn't heavily rely on hired workers. Only about 20 percent of the farm sector does, chiefly those areas involving fresh fruit and vegetables.

The average "consumer unit" in the U.S. spends $7 a week on fresh fruit and vegetables, less than is spent on alcohol, according to Martin. On a $1 head of lettuce, the farm worker gets about 6 or 7 cents, roughly 1/15th of the retail price. Even a big run-up in the cost of labor can't hit the consumer very hard.

Martin recalls that the end of the bracero guest-worker program in the mid-1960s caused a one-year 40 percent wage increase for the United Farm Workers Union. A similar wage increase for legal farm workers today would work out to about a 10-dollar-a-year increase in the average family's bill for fruit and vegetables. Another thing happened with the end of the bracero program: The processed-tomato industry, which was heavily dependent on guest workers and was supposed to be devastated by their absence, learned how to mechanize and became more productive."


If every illegal alien here today currently left America, the immediate economic impact would be insignificant and over the long haul, the impact would likely be negligible.
The average wage for skilled and unskilled farm workers is about $10 an hour, said Austin Perez, a labor specialist with the federation

The other-80%-90% farmers of the world will take care of the people here
We don't depend on them at all



Add on=If you didn't want us to go crazy-than you need to ask questions on what you have knowledge on. It seems you were willing to say-what you knew nothing about-only heard.

Answer 3

No. I would find some way to guarantee myself a living for my family without violating a law.

So who's to say they can't plant an orange tree in their country, grow it, and then pick and sell the fruit to make some money.

And if you are asking if I would do that to make money, the answer is "yes" - if I needed a job, and that was the job available, then I would do it. Thinking that all American citizens that disagree with illegal immigration are lazy and selfish is very wrong. Hell - I spent a good part of my childhood in the farmland - I have picked rocks out of farmer fields so they could plant, bailed hay, weeded gin-sing fields (due to the value and fragile state of the plants, you can't use chemicals or machinery to do that), milked cows, and a lot more that is not glamorous, high paying or easy. So to assume that I am another "lazy American" is very rude and racist of you.

And I am curious. . . It seems that all that are "pro-illegal" seem to like to use the poor Mexican immigrant as the "illegal". Isn't that in itself a racist view??

Just asking. . .

Answer 4

The problem is the minimum wage, if the job, which is a hard job, paid well then people would be willing to do it, yes oranges and orange juice would cost more but there would be more money in the economy and more tax dollars. I would pick oranges if I could get paid a good wage for it.

Answer 5

I spent several summers during my middle school and high school years picking strawberries. We were paid by the flat, and it wasn't much. I doubt it was minimum wage. I also bucked bales of hay for $20 per day for 8 hours of work, and would mow lawns for $20 per lawn, usually large lawns requiring 2-3 hours of work.
It wasn't much, but between that money and scholarships I was able to pay the majority of my college tuition.

I learned a lot about hard work for a paycheck, and I think it's a crock that more of our young aren't spending their time developing a work ethic.

And I'm white.

Wow.

Answer 6

I'll build you a robot that'll shuck every orange out of that tree in 90 seconds flat...90 seconds per tree times 5,000 trees...how fast did you want your fresh-squeezed orange juice? How about you genetically engineer your orange tree so all the oranges drop at 2:30PM on thursday in the second week of June or whatever?
Or, grow oranges hydroponically, kind of a gigantic orange 'vine' that'll just drop the orange right onto the conveyor strip...or, grow one gigantic 'orange' that never needs picking, you just sort of stick a straw in there...

Answer 7

whatever, maybe we could round up all of the katrina "victims" that are still living off the goverment and send them down to Florida to pick oranges. How about getting together the people on welfare or the people who "say" they cant find a job?

Illegals need to leave, period.

I dont drink orange juice so i dont care how expensive it gets

Answer 8

We could require the GROWER to pay a DECENT wage,and more people would be willing to pick them!!!!!!!!!!!!! Then, there's all the welfare people,let's put THEM to work,and make them PAY for those freebies!!!! ALSO, put the prisoners out in those fields!!!! They have chain-gangs to pick up trash along the highways, anyways. The farmers could make a deal with the prisons!!!!!!!! Why should OUR tax dollars go to support these prisoners??? They stay in AIR-CONDITIONED cells, have CABLE tv, have free medical , free lawyers, etc., hell they have it BETTER than the LAW ABIDING citizens who are PAYING for their incarceration!!!!!!!!!!! If they actually had it HARD, maybe they wouldn't be so damn QUICK to go out and commit ANOTHER crime!!!!!

Answer 9

Prisoners want the work too, they like to get out in the open air and get paid. We have plenty of people lady who will do it. Deport the others. We survived years without them. And no one needs them now.

Answer 10

when i was a kid me and my sisters had to sell fruit door to door i see Americans selling veges and fruit all the time and those companies want that fruit rotting as to keep their slave labor force a scare tactic and who cares if the orange prices go up we will save more money in the long run and it will force those companies to pay livable wages and if the become legal the prices will still go up so that argument holds no value

grow your own !