New program to line up potential workers for dairies
Getting local citizens to work on dairies has been a challenge across the country. Many dairies have had to turn to immigrant workers as a result.
But one group sees opportunities to get unemployed citizens paired up with farms that need the labor.
“At this point, it is quite uncertain. We are trying something new, and we won’t know the success of it for a while,” Cheryl Mayforth, director of the Workforce Investment Board for Jefferson and Lewis counties in New York, told Dairy Herd Management .
Several county agricultural organizations have teamed up with Cornell University Cooperative Extension to create a workforce development and training program. Potential workers will be shown what it is like to work on a dairy. After the training, people who are still interested will be matched with dairies that need workers.
Indeed, one reason for high turnover on dairies is that people don’t know what they are getting into when taking a job, Jay Matteson, Jefferson County Agricultural Coordinator, told North Country Public Radio recently.
"They aren't expecting it to be as intense a work site as it is,” he said. “It's not sitting behind a desk. You are working with animals. Some people have never worked with animals before, so once they are there standing next to the cow, it's not what they expect. We're just trying to help alleviate some of those misconceptions about what they are going to be getting into. And also help train them just a little bit, so that they understand when the farmer says, ‘OK, we need this done this way,’ that there is a really good reason why the farmer is saying that.”
An orientation meeting for potential workers is planned next week.
“We have a number of people who have signed up,” Mayforth said. “We’re planning on maybe a dozen (at the orientation session).”
Mayforth acknowledges it has been a problem for dairies to attract and retain local workers. But the training program is worth a try nonetheless, she adds.
This issue is particularly acute in Jefferson County. In late March, a Jefferson County dairy producer was arrested for allegedly harboring an illegal alien. The arrest followed the death of a migrant worker on his farm and the detention of eight other workers by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Read more.
Farm Management Workers - News
Worker Julian Cruz, of San Diego, wears a helmet with the words, "yes, it can be done," a motto of the United Farm Workers union. (AP Photo / Gregory Bull) California's agricultural laborers work hard and lead difficult lives.
In late March, a Jefferson County dairy producer was arrested for allegedly harboring an illegal alien. The arrest followed the death of a migrant worker on his farm and the detention of eight other workers by US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
Lackawanna County commissioners on Wednesday approved an agreement with a union representing former recycling workers who were moved to other departments. Commissioners Mike Washo and Corey O'Brien gave approval to the
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The men might find dignity managing a store instead of a hardscrabble farm, while their wives and daughters could earn pin money clerking for Mr. Sam, as he was known. “The enthusiasm of Wal-Mart associates toward their jobs is one of the company's
Striking tragedy of a tea farm - Opinion, News
I do care if they start destroying property, damaging assets, killing security guards, driving managers off the land and killing a business that, for years, has managed to feed and clothe them. And take care of their families too.
And that’s exactly what happened in Lusikisiki in the Eastern Cape where a bunch of rampaging hooligans destroyed South Africa’s biggest team farm. Let me outline what happened.
Farmworkers at Magwa Tea outside Lusikisiki in the Eastern Cape systematically destroyed and looted the farm before abandoning it. The tea farm had been producing 1,2-million kilograms of tea a season and had a turnover of about R65-million a year.
It employed 1 200 permanent workers and 2 300 seasonal workers.
So what sparked the outrage among workers and why, after years of working for a successful enterprise did they suddenly loot it, destroy it, hold the farm managers hostage and refuse to pick any more tea?
Well there were apparently a number of reasons for their outrage, but when the farm was closed down in February this year the existing farm workers were the highest-paid employees in the tea industry.
But greed was certainly one of the driving forces that stimulated their anger. Moreover, management’s refusal to grant them an increase of 104% made them furious even though their representative union, Fawu (the Farm Workers’ Union) agreed to a 7% nationwide wage increase for agricultural workers.
Magwa management told the workers at the farm that they could not authorise the increase but referred it to the Eastern Cape Development Corporation that effectively controls the tea company.
According to Pierre Leppan, a director of the corporation that has managed the farm for the past seven years, the new union representatives were confrontational from the moment they met with management and refused to accept anything less than the 104% increase workers wanted.
He says that the union officials thought that the farm managers operating the tea estate actually owned the farm and they demanded that a Magwa workers’ council election was delayed so that seasonal workers could vote to remove those with permanent jobs.
When their wage demands were officially refused, incensed workers cornered the farmer managers and held them in an office where they assaulted them. The violent strike at the tea estate went on for the next three months – even though it had been declared illegal – and managers who tried to keep the farm operating were shot at as they drove around the farm.
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