Our View - Wednesday

THE CASE FOR FARM PEASANTS
Let Bruce explain the upside of rotting food

Perhaps lawyers, engineers, state representatives, or radio talk show hosts should pluck potatoes and cabbage from the field, so food doesn't rot this year as it did in 2007. Or maybe American teenagers should work farm labor this summer and fall.

Perhaps they should, but they won't. Colorado farmers already tried getting just plain American folks, young and old, to wander fields and load crops into trucks. It didn't go well. Nobody took the jobs. Nobody took them even when wages rose to levels so high the farmers would lose money. Finally, when American citizens refused all reasonable wages for farm labor last year, scores of Colorado farmers resorted to leaving crops in the field. As growing numbers of families were finding groceries harder to buy, perfectly good food went to waste.

That's because a law took effect Jan. 1, 2007, that required Colorado farmers to verify the Social Security numbers of all laborers, and to keep on file proof that each worker is legal. The law was passed in response to talk-radio hysteria and political pandering to a handful of Americans, informed by amateurish pundits, who suddenly believe that immigrant crop workers threaten them. As a result of the law, and hostility toward immigrants, farm workers avoided Colorado in droves.

Outdated immigration laws allow about 35,000 farm workers temporary access to the United States each year, but farmers need some 700,000. Republican and Democrat legislators, concerned about the plight of farmers, want to change laws to make it easier for temporary farm workers to reach Colorado lawfully. That should please most, because the people who are so concerned about immigration keep saying they're not against immigrants. Rather, they explain, they're against illegal immigrants. We need more immigrants to harvest food. If they come legally, no harm, no foul. Right? After all, it's only the disrespect for law that worries most opponents.

Apparently that's not the case with state Rep. Douglas Bruce, R-Colorado Springs.

"I would like to have the opportunity to state at the microphone why I don't think we need 5,000 more illiterate peasants in Colorado," Bruce said on the House floor Monday.

It's possible, and quite likely, that Bruce had a colorful and articulate explanation as to why wasted food beats the legalization of an ages-old tradition of immigrant farm labor that brings food to market. Unfortunately, we may never know exactly what Bruce was going to say at the lectern that moment. That's because state Rep. Kathleen Curry, serving as debate chairwoman, ended Bruce's privilege to speak.

"How dare you!" snapped Curry, after Bruce referred to immigrants as illiterate peasants.

Why would Curry ask such a question? Obviously Bruce dares to say whatever he wants. Had Bruce continued, we might have gained insight into the logic of leaving farm workers south of the border while food rots north of the border.

Frank Eckhardt, a Greeley farmer, would probably love to hear the explanation. Eckhardt nearly doubled his farm's hourly labor wage last summer in an effort to replace the immigrant labor he had long counted on. No takers. He found that lawyers would rather practice law, legislators would rather legislate, engineers would rather work with computers, talk show hosts would rather talk, roofers would rather build roofs, teenagers would rather play at the mall or prepare for their future careers as lawyers, engineers, talk show hosts and such. Eckhardt found that Americans avoid hard manual labor by importing manual laborers.

For a variety of obvious reasons, few Americans in the 21st century are willing to bake in the sun, walking miles a day in dirt and mud, in order to load vegetables into trucks. They won't do it for any wage a farmer can pay. Not until this country suffers substantial and sustained unemployment will Americans view farm labor as opportunity. Even then, farmers will compete with unemployment payments and various forms of welfare for the interest of Americans needing money.

Let Bruce talk next time. Ask him to explain, on the House floor, how we don't need 5,000 more immigrants to harvest crops that otherwise rot.

It's time for both sides of the immigration debate to suspend the emotional zeal. Immigrants come here when we need them and pay them; always have, always will. Rotting food in the fields, which Americans refuse to harvest, means we continue to need immigrant labor, whether or not the peasants read and write. At stake are the needs of American farmers and consumers, who can ill-afford another season of wasted food.

CUT JOBS FIRST, CLOSE SCHOOLS NEXT

Colorado Springs School District 11 may close two elementary schools at the end of this school year to resolve economic concerns. The school board will host a public hearing tonight about the proposed closures of Longfellow Elementary School, 3302 Alpine Place, and Pike Elementary, 2510 N. Chestnut. The meeting comes two days after the District 12 board voted to close Cañon Elementary.

Closures cause heartbreak to students, teachers and families. Students get separated from friends and teachers who care about them. The closures would cause geographic hardships.

Few people enjoy the closure of a school, but sometimes it's inevitable. Before more schools close, however, the school board should be ready to articulate why closure is necessary. It should not be the first response to economic constraints; it should be the last.

Before a single school is closed to the burden of students, the board must take a hard look at the number of administrators it employs and what it pays them. Taxpayers don't support public schools to provide good jobs for educrats. They pay to provide classrooms, teachers and books to kids. Look to slash positions and cut salaries first. Only then should the board consider closing schools.