$9.14 to $14.23 An Hour

[Winn R]

just get a Federal Government job. Average pay with bennies is $122k per year.

Vacation and sick days give an average of 204 days a year worked. There are 7 hours of work in a day.

A paltry $85 an hour.

 

[056kid]

Ok, we've run down Brussell Sprouts. Now tell us how to cook them so they are edible. I don't even think they have them in our local (within 20 miles) stores.

I just throw them in the microwave steamer for about 7 minutes, add butter,salt,pepper and eat..

 

[Hddnis]

HE,

I'm on your side in all of this. The disparity of enforcement is what I'm trying to illustrate. Most folks don't see these Illegals bieng used as slave labor by other Illegals and part of the Narco trafficking machine.

We get that sort of crap coming into the area now and then, but we have an established cultural practice here, of providing housing and re-hiring familys that are either Citizens or on permit. Illegals with a Honcho selling thier labor, get run out of town quick because they have the effect of lowering wages for the legit migrants.

It's ridiculously easy for an Ag. employer to get his Mexican workers a work permit. Folks do NOT realize that either.

The USDA is responding to the public outcry(Media induced panic), in a very regionally selective manner, as is the produce industry. There isn't much anyone can do at this point, because it has already been done. There seems to be enough political and criminal influence out west, that the matter will continue to be a problem, and elsewhere the kneejerk reaction from DC will continue to be a costly and pointless PITA.

Wild critters are an issue everywhere. If there is a "Wildlife Mitigation policy" in place that meets USDA approval and audit, that is all that is needed and it is up to the auditor to decide if in fact it is adequate. Having a mob of wild hogs running rampant through fields and contaminating produce with choliform willy nilly is a little different than the occaisional Coyote terd they require to be dealt with here. Again, regionally selective enforcement.

It's no surprise the matter your office handed over to ICE/USDA was met with a yawn. But thanks anyway,it is appreciated, and I'm glad to hear it's still just the Feds dropping the ball by choice.

If the Illegal immigration issue was tied to the reality of the slavery issue, and thrown in peoples faces as much as the "Immigrants rights" hysteria, both issues could finally be dealt with in a constructive manner, and we could get the food supply cleaned up without making growers crazy and broke.

Stay safe!
Dingeryote

I kind of guessed we are on the same side.

If the media would show what happens with labor out here there would be a hue and cry to remember. I don't know why there is not more press coverage. I am pretty well connected with media, elected officials and civic groups. They all gave a deaf ear to what I said. One reporter with the newspaper went so far as to get a few pictures and interview a few people. Her editor refused to run the story and she basically said "I know there is more here, I don't know why he won't run it."

Places like Arizona are even worse off than we are, due mainly to the fact that they are a border state and have a warmer climate. They try to do something about it and get sued by the feds??? The treachery of that boggles my mind, it is treason, plain and simple.

I hate unequal enforcement of the law. As a cop I was not allowed to accept so much as a cup of coffee from someone per agency policy that was based on state law. This is because I was a public official. Yet I watched the elected public officials go eat thousand dollar dinners at really fancy places and it was paid for by lobbyists and lobby money.

I could go on all night with examples, but we all understand the problem. Know that if there was any way I could help you out with overbearing regulations I would, they are killing our country. Maybe this November we'll get some real hope for a change, not that I'm holding my breath.



Mr. HE

 

[dingeryote]

I hear ya on the media. They are in bed with the mess as well.

Public outcry would result in one hell of a mess, a bunch of prominent and politically connected folks getting busted, and several million out of work illegals. Not to mention the USDA chiefs getting properly rolled for not delivering on thier payoffs.

I appreciate the offer. But we are holding things down fine here with pressure on the industry, Farm Bureau, and slamming the fools that see uncontrolled waves of illegals as a good thing.

November it is.
(And remember to wash Central valley produce REAL well.)

Stay safe!
Dingeryote

 

[slowp]

I disagree. We don't have reports of tree planters chained up in camps. When inspecting, we keep an eye out for that stuff as well as discreetly asking about pay and conditions if we can speak the same language.

The Sacramento Bee ran a long story on the abuse of forest workers--Brush Pickers in this area. A lot of what they had wasn't factual.

How can things improve if more taxes are cut? That means even less inspectors,cops, border patrol. That's what a change in the current power structure will mean.

I would wash my produce no matter where it came from. Even from my own garden.

 

[madhatte]

just get a Federal Government job. Average pay with bennies is $122k per year.

Vacation and sick days give an average of 204 days a year worked. There are 7 hours of work in a day.

A paltry $85 an hour.

Where are you getting these numbers? They don't add up in my world at all.

I disagree. We don't have reports of tree planters chained up in camps. When inspecting, we keep an eye out for that stuff as well as discreetly asking about pay and conditions if we can speak the same language.

Too true. The planting crews I have worked with over the years have been super performers and totally aboveboard... but then, I HAVE been working for the Feds, at SIGNIFICANTLY less than 85 bones per hour.

 

[slowp]

Where are you getting these numbers? They don't add up in my world at all..

Nor in my world. Where'd that 7 hour day come from? And the high pay?

 

[ArtB]

Interesting thread, caught my eye as I once planted 4000 DF in 2 days on own land in 1978 near St. Helens. 33 YO at the time. Bought the trees from Mossyrock nursery and needed to get them into the ground over a weekend so I could go back to my high-paying day government contractor job <G>.
No shovel, used a custom forged spud (3" wide, 1/4" thick 59RC hardened 4340M steel socketed onto a 5 ft oak pole) - slam down, bend the pole about 30 deg, drop in the DF, stomp down the clod, repeat.
All the plantings that the deer did not eat did survive. The deer ate plenty though!

Close to being unable to walk for about 2 days after that event, nowadays do not even want to visualize 1000 trees on one day let alone day after day. Did do a couple of thousand more seedling plantings later, but only a few dozen at a time in the last decade.

 

[Winn R]

Nor in my world. And the high pay?

Where are you getting these numbers? They don't add up in my world at all..

Usa Today shows it at $123k with bennies.


http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/income/2010-08-10-1Afedpay10_ST_N.htm

I'll see if I can find the others -- quoted off the top of my head -- not the most reliable of sources.

 

[slowp]

Where does it mention a 7 hour day?

Maybe you can have my job next year...

 

[Jacob J.]

Usa Today shows it at $123k with bennies.


http://www.usatoday.com/money/economy/income/2010-08-10-1Afedpay10_ST_N.htm

I'll see if I can find the others -- quoted off the top of my head -- not the most reliable of sources.

Average salary for a government wildland firefighter is around $26k with no benefits and an 11-hour day on average. These are the people that do the majority of the back-breaking labor on fires.

 

[2dogs]

Average salary for a government wildland firefighter is around $26k with no benefits and an 11-hour day on average. These are the people that do the majority of the back-breaking labor on fires.

Better than being on an inmate crew. Though the inmates love it.

 

[Winn R]

Average salary for a government wildland firefighter is around $26k with no benefits and an 11-hour day on average. These are the people that do the majority of the back-breaking labor on fires.

The amazing thing about the USA Today article is that half the folks make more than this $123k.

Of the many problems with the Fed Gov, perhaps the top is that there is reward for work not done. The guys risking their lives barely make a living while the bureaucratic game players make out like royalty.

Maybe you can have my job next year...

Not me -- I'm retired! But unfortunately with no pension.

 

[slowp]

The amazing thing about the USA Today article is that half the folks make more than this $123k.

Of the many problems with the Fed Gov, perhaps the top is that there is reward for work not done. The guys risking their lives barely make a living while the bureaucratic game players make out like royalty.

I guess I work for the wrong agency. I make a comfy living, after 30 years but do not have 7 hour days--today will be more like 10. Remember, we have to put up with those rules too. The personnel people were forced to move to Albuquerque by the previous politicians in charge. Then their jobs were reclassified, so a lot of newbies were hired who had no knowledge of what goes on. It was a disaster. Now they are being reorganized again...

And, a lot of us "guys" did time on the firelines. The trouble is, to get on as a permanent employee, you have to take a job that nobody else wants, or be mobile and go where the majority does not want to go. Many folks won't do that so don't make a living.

The article is true about the lower paying (formerly entry) jobs being contracted out. So now we get a lot of highly educated people starting out at higher grades, not getting crew (could have been called mentoring) experience, who can't seem to relate to those of us who still go out and do work in the woods.

A better system? I'd rather work for somebody who at one time planted a few trees for more than a day.

 

[Winn R]

A better system? I'd rather work for somebody who at one time planted a few trees for more than a day.

I agree.

One of the greatest coincidences in my life occurred when the hands on construction trade I used to pay my way through my early 20's became my engineering profession.

I'd done the work I was designing. I knew when something that looked good on paper was just too hard to build or downright dangerous.

 

[treemandan]

I would rather be a Cop with TreeCo and Chowdozer riding with me and supervising me the entire shift than do that kind of work for that kind of money.

Yes, its very very bleak.

 

[teatersroad]

The amazing thing about the USA Today article is that half the folks make more than this $123k.

edit.. at a glance, this is a bum article. It would be fair if we saw comparisons across similar occupations, I don't see that. So the presumption is that the federal workforce is a fair sampling of the civil workforce. It is not, not even close. The argument amounts to comparing that Microsoft employees make on average twice as much as other private sector workers, therefore they are paid too much. The article does not address who these 'counterparts' are, so I presume it includes minimal wage jobs in the manufacturing and service sectors, neither of which the government has much to do with.

I get my hackles up for sensational garbage stories that get called news all the time.

edit edit> removed references to mean/median average - for my own uncertainty

 

[Winn R]

Eric -- It's definitely not the apples to apples thing. The 4+mil fed employees probably have much more education than average.

What I do think about is the 300,000 of them in rush hour now in DC. So how many of them really crank out a days work worthy of the pay?

And I really think about this when I look at my taxes.

 

[teatersroad]

Eric -- It's definitely not the apples to apples thing. The 4+mil fed employees probably have much more education than average.

What I do think about is the 300,000 of them in rush hour now in DC. So how many of them really crank out a days work worthy of the pay?

And I really think about this when I look at my taxes.

copy that.. my big beef was with piss poor journalism passing as a story. As for what are government produces for the money spent, they could do better. An equal worry within and without the government, is we're becoming a workforce that manipulates and ponders more than we produce. Shuffle paper, collect a grande. I have a notion that our depression is the result of our waning initiative to make things happen in any real sense; our failure to be industrious. Best I can do is turn that criticism on myself though, and keep at it.

 

[joesawer]

In SoCal I have seen illegal tree workers working on federally funded contracts and SoCal Edison jobs and state and county jobs that required union scale.
The illegals received poor pay and no benefits.
I heard a foreman ask the owner of one company what would happen if one was hurt or killed and he shrugged and said they will be crippled or dead, who cares?
That same company housed them in small portable metal buildings and when the hurricanes tore up Florida in 2005 they loaded them into the back of self loader brush trucks and drove them all the way from SoCal to Florida on I 10. In the late summer heat there is no part of that ride that would have been fun. I don,t know what would have been worse the Mohave or the gulf coast states. Maybe they got a little relief along the southern Arizona and New Mexico and West Texas deserts.
This company was actually from the Carolinas and works on many federal jobs. There has been many reports filed and much legal action attempted but they are evidently above the law.
The way the workers where treated and paid is criminal and they where often asked to do very dangerous tasks far above there skill level and the results where sometimes fatal.