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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: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @02:55PM (4 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @02:55PM (#725831)

    Actually, those immigrants ARE getting the job done--it's just not the job you want them to do.

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  • (Score: 1, Flamebait) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 24 2018, @03:39PM (3 children)

    by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 24 2018, @03:39PM (#725853) Journal

    Correct. I don't want them working as tools to undermine the US economy.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @03:55PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 24 2018, @03:55PM (#725861)

      You need to direct your anger at those who made and continued to make this possible: the businessmen and the politicians.
      Why get mad at the immigrants? I would probably do the same in their shoes.

      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Friday August 24 2018, @04:14PM

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Friday August 24 2018, @04:14PM (#725876) Journal

        Let me understand this. I can be justifiably angry at the businessmen, AND the politicians, AND the illegal aliens, all at the same time. But, my anger is misdirected?

        I am angry with every single congress since about 1950. When the US did it's Operation Wetback, there was no followup. There were promises THEN of immigration reform. Not one congress has actually addressed immigration reform. Each and every congress for the entire length of my life has FAILED to do it's job.

        I have enough anger to go around, so don't sweat that I might waste some of it on the illegals who are actually breaking the laws of the land.

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by bob_super on Friday August 24 2018, @07:04PM

      by bob_super (1357) on Friday August 24 2018, @07:04PM (#725977)

      Their cheap labor helps the US economy.
      The US citizens ? Maybe not quite as much. But many people profit from cheap hands, and that slows down the outsourcing, saving whole towns in the process.
      Shades of dark grey...

      I'm pretty sure most Latin America immigrants would really love to see the US stop using drugs and actively undermining any socialist-leaning government. That won't solve all of their problems, but it would dramatically reduce the numbers heading north.