Stephen Colbert’s new job

[and-justice-for-all]

Would you like a job as a migrant farm worker?

Pundit Stephen Colbert would – he's agreed to take the United Farm Workers' challenge to "Take their jobs."

Anti-immigrant forces have argued that immigrants, particularly the undocumented, have been taking jobs from Americans. Despite studies clearly showing that comprehensive immigration reform would help the American economy, they’ve insisted on using the economic crisis as a way to stall real reform. That’s why UFW – and now, Stephen Colbert – are showing the whole country that farm workers’ jobs aren’t easy.

Everyone who works in agriculture knows that it’s hard work. And because so many immigrants work on farms, Congress proposed the AgJobs bill, which would protect the workers who bring food to our tables by granting them temporary protected status. That status would help keep them from being exploited by farm owners.

Watch Colbert decide to try being a farm worker, and then tell Congress to pass AgJobs.
http://act.reformimmigrationforamerica.org/cms/sign/agjobs/?akid=455.249723.ArvS5M&rd=1&t=2%27s%2Bnew%2Bjob&utm_campaign=E100712ANXX&utm_content=Stephen%2BColbert&utm_medium=email&utm_source=email&utm_term=action_link1

We can’t let Congress stand by when workers are treated unfairly. Stephen Colbert is doing his part to understand the work farm workers do. Tell Congress to do theirs and pass AgJobs as a step toward comprehensive immigration reform.

Thank you,
Marissa Graciosa
Reform Immigration FOR America

[ThomasQED]

1. Brilliant!

I've been picking berries (in my own yard) for about an hour a day for the past few weeks. It's hard work. It's hot, there are bugs everywhere, you have to bend down over and over... I promised myself I'd never complain about the price of berries again. The price isn't even enough to cover what someone should get paid for picking them.

[RandomThoughts]

2. Way to go Colbert.

You are a better person then me, great idea, what a way to show how hard they work to provide food for so many people.

[xxqqqzme]

3. Way to go.

Just working in my garden cutting broccoli or spinach or gathering peas or green beans. Farm workers have my respect and they should be treated/paid better. There are always reports of heat related deaths during the summer here in California. There are laws mandating shade, water and porta potty breaks, that are largely ignored by field 'supervisors'. The fines/punishment do not begin to cover the loss of life when these laws are ignored.

[Initech]

4. Colbert kicks ass.

[Liberty Belle]

5. I think he'll be pickin' on some powerful folks, besides pickin' crops

[BrightKnight]

6. During the Bracero Program

farmers and communities did everything that they could to attract guest farm workers. They built housing, held dances, and did all kinds of other things. A guest worker program has worked well in the past. The labor conditions and program were not perfect but it is worth looking at again.

[Hannah Bell]

7. huh? "worked well"?

The workers who participated in the Bracero Program have generated significant local and international struggles challenging the US government and Mexican government to identify and return deductions taken from their pay, from 1942 to 1948, for savings accounts which they were legally guaranteed to receive upon their return to Mexico at the conclusion of their contracts. Many never received their savings. Lawsuits presented in federal courts in California, in the late 1990s and early 2000s, highlighted the substandard conditions and documented the ultimate destiny of the savings accounts deductions, but the suit was thrown out because the Mexican banks in question never operated in the United States.

Labor unions which tried to organize agricultural workers after WWII targeted the Bracero program as a key impediment to improving the wages of domestic farm workers<8>. These unions included the National Farm Laborers Union (NFLU), later called the National Agricultural Workers Union (NAWU), headed by Ernesto Galarza, and the Agricultural Workers Organizing Committee (AWOC), AFL-CIO. During his tenure with the Community Service Organization, César Chávez was given a grant by the AWOC to organize in Oxnard, California which culminated in a protest of domestic U.S. agricultural workers of the U.S. Department of Labor's administration of the program.<8> In January 1961, in an effort to publicize the effects of bracero labor on labor standards, the AWOC led a strike of lettuce workers at 18 farms in the Imperial Valley, an agricultural region on the California-Mexico border and a major destination for braceros.<9>

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bracero_Program

[BrightKnight]

9. Labor Unions could design a guest worker program that works.

My point is that we have had a large scale guest worker program in the past. It is not a new idea and it is worth looking at again. It has to be better than the undocumented chaos that we have now.

[INTMANOMYST]

8. Stephen! Stephen! Stephen!...

Gotta love Stephen and Jon.
A hard-core Libertarian buddy of mine said (with complete sincerity, btw) when I said I had to get my "Colbert/Daily Show" fix:
"of course. You gotta see the REAL news and what's REALLY going on."

I think Jon and Stephen would shudder along with me that that's so sadly true.

[livetohike]

11. Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[INTMANOMYST]

13. Thanks!

[asdjrocky]

10. What a great campaign this is!

Good work Stephen!

[Soylent Brice]

12. nice!

:thumbsup:

[unapatriciated]

14. I saw this show.

Colbert is off for a couple weeks. I wouldn't be surprised if he had video of his summer job when he returns.
I remember when Mcshame made that offer, he has forgotten and now he wants to deport those who pick his lettuce.
Thanks Stephen and thanks to the Op for posting this link.

[Ruby the Liberal]

15. You gotta love this guy.

WTG Mr. Colbert! :applause:

[meow mix]

16. hahahah

scary though brings up images from "grapes of wrath"

[BrklynLiberal]

17. Love Colbert