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posted by martyb on Friday August 24 2018, @04:34AM   Printer-friendly
from the what-could-possibly-go-wrong dept.

NPR has an August 23rd, 2018 story about the original "A-TEAM" (Athletes in Temporary Employment as Agricultural Manpower), a 1965 project to replace migrant workers with high school kids on summer break.

The year was 1965. On Cinco de Mayo, newspapers across the country reported that Secretary of Labor W. Willard Wirtz wanted to recruit 20,000 high schoolers to replace the hundreds of thousands of Mexican agricultural workers who had labored in the United States under the so-called Bracero Program. Started in World War II, the program was an agreement between the American and Mexican governments that brought Mexican men to pick harvests across the U.S. It ended in 1964, after years of accusations by civil rights activists like Cesar Chavez that migrants suffered wage theft and terrible working and living conditions.

But farmers complained — in words that echo today's headlines — that Mexican laborers did the jobs that Americans didn't want to do, and that the end of [the program] meant that crops would rot in the fields.

[...] the national press was immediately skeptical. "Dealing with crops which grow close to the ground requires a good deal stronger motive" than money or the prospects of a good workout, argued a Detroit Free Press editorial. "Like, for instance, gnawing hunger."

[One group] got paid minimum wage — $1.40 an hour back then — plus 5 cents for every crate filled with about 30 to 36 [melons.] [Students] worked six days a week, with Sundays off, and they were not allowed to return home during their stint. The farmers sheltered them in... "defunct housing" [according to one student].

Problems arose immediately... In California's Salinas Valley, 200 teenagers... quit after just two weeks on the job... Students elsewhere staged strikes. At the end, the A-TEAM was considered a giant failure and was never tried again.

[Stony Brook University history professor Lori A. Flores] says the A-TEAM "reveals a very important reality: It's not about work ethic [for undocumented workers]. It's about [the fact] that this labor is not meant to be done under such bad conditions and bad wages."

The kids gave up their summer vacations, worked in 110 degree heat six days a week, slept with no air conditioning, and ate subsistence rations, for nearly no benefit; it's no wonder the program was not a rousing success.

In tangentially-related news, the U.S. Libertarian Party published a press release the day before entitled "Immigrants Benefit the United States" that makes the blanket assertion "Immigrants, almost across the board, are a net value to the United States."


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  • (Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Friday August 24 2018, @07:09AM (5 children)

    by MichaelDavidCrawford (2339) Subscriber Badge <mdcrawford@gmail.com> on Friday August 24 2018, @07:09AM (#725675) Homepage Journal

    There's a specific number they have to hire.

    Canada has this too. I looked into it a while back - I could go back to Canada to stay if I hired fifteen Canadians.

    I don't think there's any particular requirement they be highly paid. It would cost a whole lot less to hire fifteen burger flippers to staff a restaurant than it would to hire ten coders, a couple project managers, SQA, product managers and the like.

    I think it was Ivanka Trump got some well-deserved crap for a presentation in Asia in which she explained to some rich folk that they could come in live in the US by hiring some people who already had really good jobs.

    That's really not why this kind of visa exists but I really don't think there's a requirement to hire low-income people.

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  • (Score: 0, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @07:34AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @07:34AM (#725684)

    Sure, no new jobs are being created, but a new competitor is being created, which helps the consumer.

    Sure, those jobs aren't paying particularly well, but that wealthy person is now going to be spending his resources in this country rather than that country.

    As said before: Immigration is just find and dandy, as long as the immigrant is paying is own way.

    You have to choose:

    • Open Borders
    • Welfare State

    Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, anonymous comment posting has temporarily been disabled...

    Goddamn it. Fuck this stupid website. Time to open Tor.

    You have to choose:

    • Leftist echochamber
    • Diversity of thought
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @08:36AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @08:36AM (#725701)

      You have to choose:

      Tough decision, but I choose to downmod you.

    • (Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @09:13AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @09:13AM (#725716)

      Modern would-be "socialists" don't understand mutual exclusivity or wealth creation at all. They've not arrived at their political position via any process other than parroting the emotional pandering of other dangerous idiots.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @06:21PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @06:21PM (#725959)

    Sure, no new jobs are being created, but a new competitor is being created, which helps the consumer.

    Sure, those jobs aren't paying particularly well, but that wealthy person is now going to be spending his resources in this country rather than that country.

    As said before: Immigration is just find and dandy, as long as the immigrant is paying is own way.

    You have to choose:

    • Open Borders
    • Welfare State

    Due to excessive bad posting from this IP or Subnet, anonymous comment posting has temporarily been disabled...

    Goddamn it. Fuck this stupid website. Time to open Tor.

    You have to choose:

    • Leftist echochamber
    • Diversity of thought
  • (Score: 2) by krishnoid on Friday August 24 2018, @11:36PM

    by krishnoid (1156) on Friday August 24 2018, @11:36PM (#726076)

    I think it was Ivanka Trump got some well-deserved crap for a presentation in Asia in which she explained to some rich folk that they could come in live in the US by hiring some people who already had really good jobs.

    I bet they'll put that in the Blu-ray deleted scenes [imdb.com].