Who's Picking Your Berries? America's DISGRACEFUL little secret!

I don't have kids but, if i did... nah I couldn't let my babies do that man. I'd work my hands to the bone so they wouldn't have to. At 5 years old though? no way. Now at 12-14 and up I would encourage some chores so that they learn to appreciate some hard work and the rewards that can come from it but 5? No, they're just babies.

Besides, you don't know whats out in those fields sometimes. Snakes, spiders.. the boogeyman..Al Qaeda.., the IRS.. I mean.. yea not safe for the smallers.

forcing a kid to do anything is just plain sick

reply to post by kn0wh0w


Next time I force my kid to brush her teeth I will think of how sick I am.

reply to post by loam



Sorry I read both articles and no where within the pages says that they are being forced to work.. Families bring them with them in order to make more money. The reason the owners were fined was because children were working but it has nothing to do with force unless it was their own families forcing them to help..
I am not saying that families should do this but I was raised beleiving you did your part to help your family. Sometimes that mean mowing lawns sometimes its washing car. If there is no minimum rage restriction on these growers I can understand why the kids are helping their fathers and mothers to make more money.
Therian

I don't think most of these kids get to keep the money they make their families do.

reply to post by Char-Lee


Yes, the families are so poor that they need every dime they can get to buy groceries and pay the rent. If the child has to work to help out the family, that is life. Kids have been working in some form or another around the world since the start of humanity. If you are part of a family you need to help. There is no way these parents could ever pay for daycare. The kids must come to the fields with their parents. If they pick a few buckets of berries while they are there fine. Most of these kids are healthy and strong with a good work ethic, unlike the spoiled, fat and lazy kids that feel they are entitled to everything and sit around playin Xbox. These kids may ultimately go farther in life then their coddled peers.

The real shame is that the parents can not make a living wage no matter how hard they work. If they could afford to leave the kids home more often they would.

Guess what.

If people cared about other people and stopped being seperatists this would not be an issue.

Old, your, gay, straight, white, black, him, her, us, them...all HUMAN first.

Anyone that says this is not about capitalism is disillusioned. Capitalism is the delivery mechanism for the separatist model of rich and poor.

This is nothing new. I grew up in South Texas and many of my friends came from migrant families. In the late spring and fall they had to go with their families when farm work became available. They worked right along side of their parents. That was 30 years ago and has been going on ever since. Many families need them to work just to survive, they got paid by the amount of produce they were able to pick. The really lucky ones got to stay back home with relatives. Many of my classmates told me they routinely had to work 10 or 12 hour days. The "kindly" farm owners paid them ridiculously low wages, and overcharged them for lodging, food and anything else they might need. It was a really hard life for them I am sure. These are the same people that I hear the politicians rattle on about as being "lazy" and "drain on our society".

Originally posted by bozotheclown

I don't think most of these kids get to keep the money they make their families do.

reply to post by Char-Lee

 

Yes, the families are so poor that they need every dime they can get to buy groceries and pay the rent. If the child has to work to help out the family, that is life. Kids have been working in some form or another around the world since the start of humanity. If you are part of a family you need to help. There is no way these parents could ever pay for daycare. The kids must come to the fields with their parents. If they pick a few buckets of berries while they are there fine. Most of these kids are healthy and strong with a good work ethic, unlike the spoiled, fat and lazy kids that feel they are entitled to everything and sit around playin Xbox. These kids may ultimately go farther in life then their coddled peers.

The real shame is that the parents can not make a living wage no matter how hard they work. If they could afford to leave the kids home more often they would.

You are not describing the problem cases. I took my kids to the fields with me when they were little, I lived on ranches and farms my whole life. We did a lot of things for extra money like selling wild black walnuts, hard job picking them up in the summer heat , I picked all fruits i could get to can and make jam, but the kids were not "working" in the way this discussion started out about.
I certainly agree children need to learn good work ethics and to care what happens with money in the family when they are old enough that they can share that burden. I was raised in a family of 7 and my Father died when I was 7, we did not have it easy but no one made us work morning til evening and I am grateful for those few years of play and freedom with my brother and sisters even if we were hungry most of the time.Those years are gone in a flash, youth and the incredable ability to laugh and play even when hungry.

It is deplorable that children are enslaved and mistreated; and children surely are.

It is also true that children involved in agricultural life happens on a spectrum. And blanket legal "answers" from the federal government on high often do not take this into account. I think this truth is the underlying discomfort some of us have will a blanket "solution" of outlawing children being present in rural settings.

Yes, abuses surely exist; they must be ended. But for some reason, the solution always involves treating the poor as suspects, and forbidding them from living anything but an urban lifestyle.

Most of the middle-class farm kids in my childhood spent summer days following dad around the farm, while mom worked in town. So they got to spend it riding in the pickup with dad----which is now illegal, due to child safety-seat laws. Now, on a dirt road, with less than one car per 5 miles, the dad can either break the law, or buy a sedan and try to treat it like a work truck. And all because the people who write the laws live in a condominium in Austin or Washington.

I think that the accurate term to describe these workers is "migrant worker" rather than " immigrant worker". These workers migrate throughout the country following harvest seasons for certain hand-harvested crops. They don't typically live anywhere. Some farms have cabin like accommodations for them to live in during their stay. The workers only live in one place for as long as it takes to harvest the crop, which could be a couple weeks to a couple months, then they move on. They are almost exclusively here illegally by immigration rules, but not necessarily illegally for the reason which they are here. It is an american tradition in agriculture that this labor practice exists and I'm fairly certain that labor laws in this industry are rarely enforced unless driven by complaints. Besides, these workers move around way too frequently to ever keep track of them. You can't really think that it would be possible to settle down anywhere in America and try to raise your family off the income generated working in a 30 day harvest season. What are they going to do the rest of the year? These workers harvest many different crops in different regions throughout the year and live sort of a gypsy lifestyle. Do you really think any of them are going to be seeking licensed childcare facilities to watch their children while they work in the fields? These people must work and watch their children at the same time. There fore, the children end up in the fields, next to their parents. Keep in mind, the majority of these workers are from Mexico. Their standard of living is much lower than that Americans. Even laboring as they do, they are much better off than they were at home, where there were next to 0 opportunities. I'm not supporting the exploitation of anyone who wasn't so fortunate to be born into an American family, but at least they're not going to be kidnapped or murdered by a drug cartel in a Michigan blueberry field. And while Americans look at their compensation as paltry or borderline slavery, to these workers, the wages are relatively good. I live in a region that attracts some of these workers and I have heard that some of them "live" in Mexico and actually go home between seasons. Lets say hypothetically that a family of 5 could earn 50 dollars for a long day of work in the fields, I really don't know what the typical wage is, but there must be some sort of competition between farms to attract the most productive workers and $50 doesn't seem like a lot to me for that amount of labor. How much would the same family earn living in rural Mexico or Guatemala? I'm gonna guess maybe $5. These families live as a unit, not as independent individuals, as is the American ideal. They provide for the family as a family. To those of you thinking that I'm endorsing illegal immigration for the workers that stay in America, I'm not. Actually, I wish that they could become legal citizens and acquire more permanent employment opportunities so that they may become contributing members of our society, as most of OUR ancestors did, but that's another debate. The bottom line is that these kids are just living with their families, in the style that their family lives. It may not be a lifestyle that most of us would embrace, but to some people, this life is an improvement and those of us unfamiliar with the culture may find it helpful to look at the situation from different angles before making our assessments.

I know this has been done for a long time on some farms. I picked strawberries when I was around 10-12 in the burning hot sun one summer in the small town where I grew up. Parents who were desperate, stupid or just sick of watching their offspring would let these strangers load their kids on a truck and take off with them for the day. We were paid a ridiculously low sum per quart of strawberries, not per hour (it was either ten cents or a quarter, I can't recall exactly... this was in the 1980's). I was not allowed to sit down to pick berries even though that was easier since the bushes were low to the ground. Some of the kids would fill up the quarts half with rocks and then put strawberries on top but they got wise to that after a while. I would not be surprised if this farm still does this.

I told ya'll to repeal minimum wage,
and maybe even the child labor laws
as I know many American children who want to work.

But nobody wanted to hear it.

ATS: Repeal Minimum Wage says the Grouch

/shrug
David Grouchy

Originally posted by TheWalkingFox
It's not shocking. It's capitalism.

Lower the cost of production, no matter the cost to the labor or quality. Keep prices to consumer the same. Profit.

Was that in the script? Yeah cause communist and dictatorial countries like North Korea and China are just bastions of ethical morality and don't exploit thier children while capitalism is evil... Sigh!

This is probably overblown I live in farm country and have never seen a child working in the fields. it's pretty hard to conceal so I doubt it happens as much as they are saying.. There is nothing wrong with Children learning to work however if they over work and exploit them then that is wrong.

Still these immigrants are often coming from much worse conditions. One need only visit Mexico to know they will gladly work the fields then what they came from. Not saying it is right to exploit them just that they think they are better off coming here and usually they are.

reply to post by Nephalim


How about toxic pesticides? They don't warn these parents about that, I'm sure.

reply to post by loam


I am going to tell you why this is ridiculous. Notice the class of people being judge and the class of people in the videos being judged. They are projecting an emotion of their own onto the people in the field. I have come a long way since a very poor childhood. My parents, at certain times, worked fields for much needed money. They had my grandma to watch us when they went, but we would beg to go with them anyway. My brothers and myself were that young (videos and main topic) and would promise if we were allowed to go we would work. We wanted to help make extra money so we, as a family, would have a little more. If people like you were to come at us we would wonder what was the matter with you.
Illegal immigrants are one thing that could be problematic, but no one should say kids aren't allowed on the fields if they want to be. I came from that and I wanted to be there.

mmmm. I'm enjoying some strawberries and blue berries right now.
Are they supposed to taste different if picked by children (who were with there parents) or adults.
I'm sure that when these children get tired, they fall asleep next to there family member. Is it any different when they carry their little sand pales full of berries, or if they are full of beach sand? During the summer months, these children are not in school.

Originally posted by loam
reply to post by StratosFear

 

I guess you didn't really read any of the above.

Same to you... how exactly do you get widespread from 3 farms?

Well, in the context of an economy the size of the US some child abusive child labour would be inevitable. It is not systematic like in the countries of other developing or undeveloped economies, like (er) China, India and most of Africa, Asia and South America. etc. This is not to excuse any US companies who employ child labour - just to point out that it is the exception rather than the norm.

I think INICEF estimate one in five children (5-16) are working and not in school, globally. Mind you most of Africa has not schooling network.

Also, it does not help that the US is (I think) the only country who has not signed the Convention on the Rights of the Child.

Regards

by taking away these kids ability to work, you may also be stripping them of their ability to eat. Their families may simply be unable to support them in some cases, unless they are contributing... financially.

reply to post by renegadeloser

Originally posted by renegadeloser
...in some cases...

And yet in other cases, I can't help but wonder how many of those parents have flat screen tvs, xboxs, and all the alcohol you can reasonably drink on Friday and Saturday nights???

Terrible. I know.

But still...