Vermont dairy farms count on illegal immigrants

Source: AP via yahoo news

"If it wasn't for the Hispanics," Sabin says, "there would be no family farms. There would be no farms, period."

This is the open secret behind the black-and-white Holsteins, rolling hills and postcard images: Unable to attract local workers for the grueling job of milking cows and working the farm, Vermont, the nation's 14th-largest dairy state, props up its dairy industry with perhaps thousands of immigrant laborers, many of whom are in the U.S. illegally.

Gone are the days when a family could run a farm without outside help. Now, some farms milk their cows 24 hours a day. Few people are willing to do the work, which can be 60-hour weeks in weather so hot that flies swarm or so cold that exposed skin will freeze.

Jessica Vaughan, director of policy studies with the Washington-based Center for Immigration Studies, which favors limits on immigration, said farms and other businesses have grown dependent on cheap, illegal labor. "Industry has turned out to be almost addicted to that supply of (illegal) workers and as a result have never had to do anything different, to see if there's a way to make the job more appealing," said Vaughan, of Franklin, Mass.

Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090513/ap_on_re_us/us_vermont_hispanic_dairy_workers

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Seems to me if they can get Americans to do fishing in Alaska, listed as one of the most dangerous and grueling occupations, they're simply not paying enough to attract Americans.

or are those statements similar to those by southern farmers back before the Civil War?

And wth do they need to be milking 24 hours a DAY???

I don't know if they mean that there's so many cows that they have to switch in new cows all the time, or that they're milking existing cows all the time. Either way, the old image of a farmer sitting on a stool milking Bessie in the morning is long long gone.

Each cow needs to be milked twice a day.

I don't remember how long it takes to milk an individual cow - it's been years since I did it.

Unable to attract local workers for the grueling job of milking cows and working the farm at slave wages.

Since when is farm work like milking cows considered grueling? I guess since I grew up on a farm, I've never thought of those jobs as grueling. Most of the time we kids did the routine work. What usually is grueling is the slave wages some rich farmers offer people to work almost 24/7 (especially on harvest days) under all types of conditions without even a thank you, let alone a overtime pay for working overtime regularly.

People have no respect for labor. They think anyone will do a job as long as they simply put it out there. Never mind paying them a decent salary, never mind treating them with respect and kindness. Why not pay people what they are worth and share some of that profit with the ones who made it possible?

Because of Greed.

Farmers can be greedy?? Wow!

/s

When I was a kid my parents sent my sister and I to stay at a friend's dairy farm for the summer--we worked our ASSES off so I have profound respect for anyone who works that hard. Of course as kids we had plenty of time to play, but we pitched in with their kids just like we were family. I dare say probably only one of my kids would ever be willing to work a job like that these days--they don't care for messy work at all. :(

but kids these days are like those of any days- they will do what's rational. I suspect, and I hope this never happens, that if one of your kids fell on hard times, they would indeed take a job like this. Kids join the armed services primarily because of financial reasons, and not only do they get their hands dirty, they sometimes get them bloody. I'd say getting shot in the head, or shooting someone in the head, is a damn brutal job. In Appalachia, a job in a coal mine is considered 'making it'. It's a terrible job, you will cough up dust, you will spend your daytime existence in the dark doing backbreaking work, you might die, but they do it. Americans can and will do these jobs.

Immigration reform has to be national, not state by state, otherwise one state will just attract illegal workers at the expense of others.

They will happily do anything that is fulfilling. If the farm you're working for shows by example that the work is noble, necessary, useful, interesting and fulfilling, it isn't so hard.

If they show by example that shoveling the shit is beneath them, suited only for illegal workers, then it is hard.

The reason manual work has become so horribly degrading is because it is not considered honorable. The observation about commercial fishing made upthread is spot on. Those guys work 20 hour days in the worst imaginable conditions... and they aren't even guaranteed minimum wage. Yet, I know plenty of white folks who do it, and they have great respect for the boss who is right out there with them.

So much of our society has become detached from the source of our food and so many other goods that we forget that it really is honorable to work at these jobs.

I grew up in a blue-collar family but we live in a very white-collar area and fear this may happen to my kids at times. My grandfather was a sharecropper in Mississippi and would never want people like him to be disrespected. He was a person of no means but of great character, never complained and literally worked himself to death for 'The Man' (he had a heart attack on the tractor when he was 65). Their roots were built by honorable people doing hard, dirty work.

Many high schools and colleges require that students have some volunteer time under their belt to graduate.

I've been thinking that it might be a good idea to offer in the alternative that the requirement could be satisfied by working a summer at a real job- in the fields. I know it sounds a bit Bolshevik of me, but I really think that American youth of all social classes could benefit from working in the fields for a summer or two.

Of course, I'll probably get swamped with the not unrealistic opinions that some of these kids will work one day and go out on disability or end up in the hospital. I suspect that some migrant workers end up in the hospital as well.

I hate to sound like a single-issue mouthpiece, but I think that there are things America has to face up to:

A minwage job with no health insurance is not minimum wage- it's gambling.

While many people are not eligible for welfare, many who are on welfare see no benefit to taking a minwage job if it causes them to lose health care and housing assistance.

The appeal of illegal immigrants to industry is that they cannot get welfare, or health insurance, or other benefits of citizenship and therefore will take the minwage job because it's still better than where they come from.

That not all illegal workers are making minwage- those with skills are earning considerably more than minwage, but are still a bargain to the trades because they are paid under the table, and the employer avoids payroll taxes, IRS formulas, workers comp, and other expenses or legal entanglements relative to the low risk of getting busted for illegal labor practices.

:silly:

It's a very dirty job.

I don't mind it but a lot of people cringe at the idea of working around it (my family included).

I guess lazy American workers prefer to sleep on the streets and not get enough food to eat these days.

10% of the population is on food stamps. For many, the food stamps aren't enough to feed them or their families. A lot of folk's unemployment benefits have run out.

But they prefer homelessness and hunger to milking cows. Really?

... which would mean hiring two shifts of workers if it's an 80 hour work week.

The story of Vermont milk farmers depending on immigrants forms the core of Julia Alvarez' recent novel, Return to Sender. Thanks for bringing this story to the forefront. Here's a link to a synopsis of Alvarez' book:

http://labloga.blogspot.com/2009/04/review-julia-alvarez-return-to-sender.html

mvs

to have plenty of kids. ;)

Will they stay on the farm? Recent history says no. The 'family farm' is close to becoming a relic due to the Walmart-ization of farming. Large agribusiness controls the lions share of the market, and small farms that have to compete often have to take 'shortcuts' like hiring illegals or, as you indicate, having a captive labor market.

Buy machinery that milks 10,000 cows an hour.
then buy 2.4 million cows.
You maximise the machinery and must milk around the clock.
MBA designed agriculture.

Farm and ranch work kills more folks than salmon fishing.
Not many bright young minds looking for those jobs.

As a percentage, or as a total? Just curious.

"Not many bright young minds looking for those jobs."

Well, not everyone is bright. We need jobs for the average as well (unless you live in Lake Wobegon, where everyone is above average).

As a percentage crabbing is worst.
But raw numbers many more involved in deadly farm accidents.
I used to fish and am a farmer.

If we double the wages of the labor at our dairies, the price of dairy would surge xx percent.
and would depress the sales so the industry would shrink. But we might attract more legal citizens to do these jobs.

Although the mexican workers I have seen are super hard workers, most with families, involved in sports and music gatherings. Their community is what our communities used to be before consumerism took away our souls.

I live in paradise, the scenery is great but the pay is lousy.

I have a hard time with the concept that these farms that require all of these outside hired workers to run a 24/7 milking operation qualify as "small, family farms". Just because it's owned by one family and not a corporation, to me, does not still qualify it as a small family farm - not if you are running that big of an operation.

I suppose it's all just semantics, but if it has gotten to the point where a small farm run by one family with no outside help, or at most, one hired hand, is not feasible anymore, then that is a sad, sorry state of affairs. Those types of farms are FAST disappearing and it is quite tragic. When I was growing up, 90% of the kids I went to school with were growing up on farms. Now it's a MUCH smaller percentage.

And yes, farm work can be back-breaking, but it can also be very enjoyable and rewarding. The difference though, in my opinion, is when it becomes a "factory farm" where you have multiple shifts of several workers coming and going and running a big operation as a business, it no longer has that feeling of a farm - the workers collect a paycheck for their time, but they have no investment in the success of the farm. It's impersonal. It's no different than any other job. When you are talking about a husband and wife, running a farm on their own, milking and feeding the cows, caring for the calves, tending to sick or birthing animals, planting and working the fields to grow crops for feed and to sell, harvesting, maintaining equipment - and all the successes and failures are your own - that is when it is exhausting but rewarding and satisfying work and not nearly as miserable. It's very personal. You have a small enough number of cows that they all have names. The kids help with feeding the baby calves and the bedding and other chores. You have just a regular barn for milking - not a HUGE milking shed where the cows are rotated in and out and there are so many that they are just a number. The problem is that it has become so incredibly difficult for those true family farms to succeed financially, which is why they are disappearing. Sad, indeed.


:-(

In my neck of the woods, the Northeast Kingdom, I can think of only one. And I've never heard of a VT dairy farm where they milk 24/7. I read the article and I'm unconvinced that there are more than 3 or 4 operations in the state that could possibly be milking 24/7. Also, most VT dairy operations are growth hormone free.

Here in my area, there are only a few larger operations that I know of, and none of them are 24/7 either. (And we aren't talking HUGE operations, just "expanded" - more cows, bigger setup - with some outside workers.) Sadly, there are fewer and fewer of the small dairy farms. Seems the only farmers who manage to stay in it are the ones who expand their operations.

I was very surprised by the 24/7 claim in the article - and as I said, that certainly doesn't qualify as a "family farm" to me.

I live in rural WI. I have several neighbors who own family farms, and none of them hire hispanics. Most don't hire anyone at all - with the exception of the occasional milking so the entire family can take a trip somewhere for a day or two.

Calling a farm that milks 24/7 a 'family farm' is like calling Wal-Mart a 'family owned store'. Or, Tyson a 'local butcher'.

Raise that to $12 and there would be lines of Americans forming at the farm gates.

I have seen school busses of migrant workers, who appear to be largely Latino or Haitian (not usually on the same bus) being taken to and from the farms. In some suburbs of major cities they bus in fast food workers in school busses from the inner city because it's cheaper than paying suburban youth what they would deign to work for.

In Broward and Dade they have pick up centers for farm workers, some of whom might be illegal but most of whom appear to be just plain folks.

I'm wondering if the Vermont farms have ever thought of bussing in workers, or if it's practical.

I wonder what people are willing to pay for a gallon of milk. Enough to support substantially higher wages for dairy workers?

We saw this with the tomatoes in Immokalee. A tiny increase in the PAY per pound would greatly improve the earnings and living of the pickers. But would that increase be passed along intact?

Look at what happens when the cost of something goes up. The pricing formulas are based on a mark up percentage. So if the price of a gallon of milk goes up 10¢ then the farmer want's 20¢, the processor wants 40¢, the store wants $1.20, and a ten cent increase balloons.

Am I wrong about this?

"If it wasn't for the Hispanics," Sabin says, "there would be no family farms. There would be no farms, period."

Right, so no one else in the world is capable of doing grunt work other than illegal aliens from mexico.

I wonder how other countries survive? Unless the US (with our illegal workforce) is single-handedly feeding the entire world.

Besides, if your business model requires breaking the law on a daily basis to function, maybe you should consider restructuring.

years here. the family dairy farm is dying in Vermont. And family dairy farms are really all there's ever been here. however, farming itself isn't dying in Vermont. More and more people are gettting in to small herd cheese making and growing organic produce or raising organic animals for food.

We have few DUers who give a damn about exploited workers, however.

my question is
who should do those jobs? what american?

I'm "compassionate"!

why not give them rights?

Because then they become Americans who "won't do those jobs", based on your logic. Thus even more cheap labor will be required. :shrug:

Our government needs to come up with a sensible and humane solution to illegal immigration.