Remember McCain's $50/hour lettuce picking offer?

[bunkerbuster1]

Remember how he claimed Americans wouldn't pick lettuce for $50/hour (the equivalent of $100K per year)?

Remember how outrageous that seemed at the time?

Remember how this story has been brought up time and again in the wake of the charges of "elitism" by the Republicans against Obama?

oh, wait...


(in case you'd forgotten, and bet maybe you have...)
from http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12155322/

The first questioner seemed to challenge his commitment to organized labor. When McCain started to praise a particular labor group in Arizona, the crowd booed again.

“Stop!” he said with a smile, drawing laughter from the crowd. “I surrender.”

But he took more questions, including a pointed one on his immigration plan.

McCain responded by saying immigrants were taking jobs nobody else wanted. He offered anybody in the crowd $50 an hour to pick lettuce in Arizona.

Shouts of protest rose from the crowd, with some accepting McCain’s job offer.

“I’ll take it!” one man shouted.

McCain insisted none of them would do such menial labor for a complete season. “You can’t do it, my friends.”

[aquart]

1. What does the idiot think we do normally?

[bunkerbuster1]

3. I just want to know why this story had no legs whatsoever.

Particularly when I'm listening, just today, to every goddamned Gooper AM radio hater complaining about the Democrats being out of touch with ordinary Americans and "elitist."

These fuckers are nominating a guy who thinks no American would pick lettuce for 100 grand a year. How much more out of touch could you be if you tried?

[eShirl]

7. the footage will be great in the anti-McCain ads

I'm assuming we'll be seeing some anti-McCain ads at some point

[bunkerbuster1]

12. in the meantime click on this...

http://www.barelypolitical.com/post/5683/another-one-from-lee

[nashville_brook]

28. that's wonderful!

[aquart]

25. We need a lotta signs and t-shirts.

"I WILL pick lettuce for $50 an hour."

Bumperstickers. Buttons. Window signs. Google bomb.

If the media won't give it legs, put it in a wheelchair and PUSH.

[SteelPenguin]

2. Yeah I remember that.

He's a condescending prick.

What, there are no americans who work in the fields for a whole season on any farm in america? We're totally incapable of it?

Bullshit. Total bullshit.

I say this as someone who worked in the fields for 3 months one season when I was in college. The first week was the hardest, but you get used to it, and in some ways it's kind of nice, other than it paying total crap.

[bunkerbuster1]

4. Glad I'm not the only one.

Obama (and Clinton, if she knows what's good for her) will start running with this story.

[bluestateguy]

5. McCain's immigration policies are a disaster

It's amnesty plain and simple, and more importantly, it's bad policy that will drive down wages and benefits for American workers.

Is it too much too ask that the federal government at least TRY to enforce the laws on the books?

[bunkerbuster1]

15. Even though I tend to lean toward open borders, I don't for a moment buy McCain's notions

I should state up front for the purposes of this discussion that I'm more or less an internationalist, and I want to see everyone's standard of living rise around the world.

But I also recognize that there has to be wheeling and dealing and quid pro quo, and I don't for a second believe McCain when he says that we need guest workers because Americans simply won't do farm labor for any price. That's bullshit.

I think no matter where you stand on illegal/undocumented workers, you can agree with that. And that's why we need to pound 'em on this.

[sandnsea]

18. Aargh, if American workers won't stand up for themselves

Then there will ALWAYS be someone who will do a job cheaper. UNIONS FOR EVERYONE. Until every American worker gets that through their head, labor will always be exploited.

[EOTE]

6. Holy crap! Where can I sign up to be a lettuce picker?

I've been having a damn hard time getting by on my IT Analyst salary, even when combined with the salary of my SO. Little did I know all that I had to do was give up my IT job and have my SO stay home and take care of our child. I'd be making more than our salaries combined and I'm guessing it would be a lot less frustrating. Does somebody have an 'in' to the lettuce picking industry. That's where I need to be right now.

[bunkerbuster1]

8. That's what most folks in the audience wanted to know.

I can't recall any "journalist" bothering to follow up on that story to see what the hell this man was thinking when he claimed Americans wouldn't pick lettuce for $50/hour.

[EOTE]

11. This proves that either McCain is either ridiculously stupid or ridiculously out of touch.

Actually, it's likely that he's both. He either hears that $50 an hour figure and thinks: "Geez, $50 an hour?! That's a pittance, it couldn't possibly work out to be more than $20k or so per year. Or he honestly thinks that all these people who are struggling to get by in this country are all making six figures. Either way, he's quite the dumb fuck.

[bunkerbuster1]

13. Mostly, he probably thinks most Americans are lazy and comfortable.

Maybe 50 an hour is a lot of money for us, but we Americans are too lazy to take him up on his kind offer to pick lettuce in the hot sun.

It's truly, shockingly insulting, in a way that no Democrat could ever come close to expressing.

I will be very pissed if this doesn't emerge during our idiotic discussion of what's "elitist" about Democrats. Very, very pissed. I know the media's in the tank for the Republican fuckhead, but there ought to be enough alternative outlets to bring this up and shame the MSM into mentioning it.

[jtrockville]

14. or both, nt

[zbdent]

16. well, he did say he wasn't very good at economics ...

proof ...

[AZ Criminal JD]

29. Arizona. Go to Tucson and you will find ads all over the place.

I'll bet we'll see you down there soon.

[NNN0LHI]

9. That will come back to haunt McCain before it is all over

I hope there is video of that.

Don

[bunkerbuster1]

10. I believe there's audio of it... Yep, found it!

I heard it during an anti-McCain video clip; he's distinctly heard saying "You can't do it, my friend."

If I can find it I'll post a link in this thread.


here's the link to the parody video: you can hear McCain make his offer clear as day:

http://www.barelypolitical.com/post/5683/another-one-from-lee

[AZ Criminal JD]

30. Only if Americans can be found to do it. No one has been able to find even one.

[maui9002]

17. I agree with McCain's basic argument

that most Americans will not do the work done by many immigrants, but it was foolish of him (and typical of his propensity to overstate the issue) to use $50 an hour in his example, which is not even close to being a realistic number. If those who picked produce and cotton were paid $50 an hour, lots of Americans would stop buying produce and cotton because the labor costs would drive up prices of those products. The fact is that most jobs that are filled by immigrants are low skilled and low paying; hence, they are either going to be filled by persons who will accept the minimum wage (or sometimes less) or not filled at all. The real question is whether most Americans would accept these jobs for a minimum wage under prevailing conditions; for example, many of these jobs are temporary because they're highly seasonal. Based on my experience as a long time resident of the state of Arizona, and having worked some summer jobs with undocumented workers, the answer to that question, in my humble opinion, is no, Americans for the most part would not pursue these kinds of jobs. And frankly, I don't we want to pursue these kinds of jobs. Instead, we should be focusing on creating jobs that require higher levels of skill and education that can justify higher pay and better benefits.

In addition, this notion that stopping immigration, by itself, will somehow help us, is a canard. Businesses in Arizona rely on immigrants not just for inexpensive labor but as customers as well. Although this is anecdotal, I personally know of two businesses that are directly and adversely impacted by the crackdown on illegal immigrants in AZ. One is a lawn/landscaping business that relied heavily on a group of undocumented workers; because most of those workers have left the state, the business cannot grow and is having trouble meeting its current schedule. Why does this matter to citizens of AZ? Because he's now contemplating laying off several more highly paid administrative types (who are all citizens) because the business model no longer works. He claims he's had ads in local newspapers since November offering $18 an hour with two takers, both of whom quit after a few days on the job (and it's not summer here yet when outdoor work gets much tougher). Another business has no undocumented workers as employees but relies heavily on undocumented workers and their families as customers. Why does this matter to citizens of AZ? Because the owner will soon have to make a choice to scale back or sell his business, which of course, will matter to his @ 100 legal employees.

What McCain argues, and what Obama and Clinton support, is comprehensive immigration reform, which recognizes the value of immigrant labor but protects American workers first, provides certain benefits to immigrant workers, and requires immigrant workers to work within the system (e.g. pay taxes and insurance premiums) as a quid pro quo to receiving the benefits of working in the U.S. I disagree with McCain on almost every issue, but this is not one of them.

[NNN0LHI]

19. McCain is against comprehensive immigration reform these days

Its all enforcement now that he needs the knuckledragger vote.

Don

[maui9002]

22. Agreed he's changed his opinion on enforcement and a wall

and that he's doing it for political reasons, but he still believes in comprehensive immigration reform, which IMHO would obviate the need for the type of enforcement that is so popular these days (like recent immigration sweeps targeting people with brown skin in Phoenix carried out by Sheriff Arpaio).

[sandnsea]

20. bullshit

I live in Oregon and outdoor laborers work for less than $18 an hour all the time. Check the unemployment, city by city, and put the ad in a different newspaper. Your friend is afraid he'll have to lower his standard of living to pay a fair wage and taxes, that's all.

[maui9002]

23. All I can tell you is what he told me

If there are folks willing to work for less than $18 an hour, he'll take them, because that's what he's currently willing to pay to his employees. The point I was trying to make is that there are certain jobs, many of which are routinely filled by immigrants, that simply will disappear if immigrants don't take them because they are low paying jobs that require little or no skills--and saying the employer should pay a living wage (whatever that is) ignores the economic reality that employers will only hire employees whose contribution to the company exceeds what the worker is being paid. That's not true in every case, but I'm pretty confident the crackdown on illegal immigrants in AZ will have a negative impact on the economy--much more so than people realize, because undocumented workers are part of this economy both as laborers and consumers.

By the way, re taxes, he paid FICA for the employees who left and the employees paid FICA (because he withheld it, as required by law), so it's not true to say he's afraid of paying taxes.

[sandnsea]

24. Like I say, advertise in high unemployment towns

There are lots and lots of people in this country who would jump at the chance to work for $18 an hour, especially for someone who is paying taxes, ui, and worker's comp. $18 an hour is not a low paying job. I have no problem with immigrants of any kind, as long as they are being paid exactly the same as citizens. That isn't usually the case.

[bunkerbuster1]

21. But that's not the troubling thing about his gaffe

It goes way, way, way beyond the question of fair wages for farm workers, and beyond how we might provide legitimacy for undocumented workers. (For what it’s worth, on a certain level, I think that the only glimmer of sanity of all the stupid shit Bush has proposed over the years has been his somewhat-rational approach to immigration, and yeah, McCain’s a part of that).

This is about simply not having a goddamned clue about how actual Americans live. Far more blatantly so than, oh, ordering orange juice at a diner, throwing gutter balls, that sort of thing.

And yet it gets no mention whatsoever in the media, even though it is as good an example of being contemptuous of American workers as any I can think of.

[conflictgirl]

31. No way

I lived in Dallas/Fort Worth from 1994-2002 and for much of that time I worked for a landscape & lawn care company. We hired legal American citizens and expected them to be outside in 90 & 100-degree temps all day dragging equipment across lawns. You know how much they did it for? No, not $18 an hour. Try HALF that! That's right, they were working out in the hot sun every day for $9/hr. And that was in an area that had a booming economy - it was far from the only job available. Kind of blows a hole in the theory that people just won't do that kind of work for even decent wages, doesn't it?

But if you want to see people who are really desperate for work, regardless of what kind it is or what it pays, come up here to MI. Up here more than 600 people showed up to apply for cashier jobs at Aldi that paid $10 an hour.

[bunkerbuster1]

26. Evening kick... I want this damn thing out there.

[nichomachus]

27. Picking lettuce isn't the worst job in the world

I live in the desert. There are plenty of jobs that require people to be outdoors in blistering heat all summer. Many of these jobs are just as grueling than picking lettuce -- some more so. Many of them are done by US citizens who have no other way of putting food on the table.

McClone is an elitist asshole.

[bunkerbuster1]

34. Well of course not.

In any case, there are millions of Americans who'd gladly do the work for one third of what he "offered."

[varelse]

32. Ah - McCain can talk down to working-class Americans with the cameras rolling, and yet

he is given a 'free pass' while liberals and progressives are routinely labeled as "elitist" and "out of touch".

I agree with the suggestion that this story needs to be pushed (in a wheelchair if necessary) if the mainstream media chooses to keep it from growing legs and walking off with McCain's chance of winning in the GE.

[B Calm]

33. Excellent point. I'm book marking this thread!

[bunkerbuster1]

35. And I'm shamelessly kicking this once more.

I've emailed Media Matters and posted this on other forums as well. Let's get it out there NOW.