Have you heard about what’s going on in Georgia with the peanut and blueberry crops?  Mother Jones has a good summary of the story background, but the owners of agribusiness in Georgia are bawling because their crops may not be harvested or processed in time.  Why?  They blame the draconian new Georgia immigration law which has resulted in many undocumented workers fleeing the state.  I agree in part, but I wonder what would happen if the business paid something better than slave wages and if they offered benefits.  No golden parachutes, mind you, just a livable wage and some healthcare.

If the business owners offered $50 an hour, how many workers would show up and stay? If they offered $50 an hour AND set up a free health clinic with follow-up care for anyone who worked 20 hours in a week, how many more?

This is simply a failure to value work and workers. They can get the crop in and processed, if they are willing to give up a little of their profit. No one needs to starve in America because of this idiocy and greed. We probably don’t even need to pay more for peanuts.

Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal’s program to replace fleeing migrant farmworkers with probationers backfired when some of the convicted criminals started walking off their jobs because field work was too strenuous, it was reported Wednesday.

And the state’s farms could lose up to $1 billion if crops continue to go unpicked and rot, the president of the Georgia Agribusiness Council warned.

via Politico

As far as I am concerned, the lawmakers who voted against immigrants should have to spend 10 hours a day in the fields along with the agribusiness types who set the wages so low without offering benefits.  I’ll even let them keep their current pay and benefits while they do this, as long as they actually learn to value labor in the long term.

On the other hand, this being the south, they’ll probably just return to slavery.

—TexBetsy