Negative Fallout From Increased Wage Laws

[adios]

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I note that among the aims of the organization are to:

-Work with state and federal officials to obtain funding to automate key manual processes prevalent in our industry including harvesting, cleaning, de-stemming, and peeling of chile.

-Research and lobby for additional support such as tax breaks or training funds specific to our industry to assist our members in competing with cheap foreign products.

-Lobby to oppose additional free trade agreements and to ensure any agreements will minimize the impact to our industry.

-Direct chile related research at NMSU and other public and private institutions to ensure our needs are being met.


So it's OK for the association to rely on government to give its members funding for automation, tax breaks and training funds as it sees fit, to set up protective tariffs to artificially raise prices, and to do research to make sure its needs are being met. But not to insure a decent wage for the 5,000 full-time or 10,000 part-time workers that contribute to it being a $400,000,000 industry.

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Good points. But I'm not sure that if the organization received the subsidies they sought that we'd not see more acceptance of a higher minimum wage. Without the subsidies they'll be hurting or so they claim. It's ok to say that since they can't compete with imports from other countries then maybe the industry should cease to exist. That doesn't change the basic point though that a higher minimum wage will cause industries to suffer.

What we don't know is how much foreign competitors are being subsidized. This issue basically came up in the 2004 Presidential election. Sweatshops; much less stringent environmental regulations when compared to the U.S.; currency manipulation; subsidies to artifically lower prices; etc. were blamed for U.S. workers losing their jobs to foreign competitors.

[ScottieK]

I live in NM, and losing our chile crops would suck....but I'm sure other industries, regional and national, are trying to deal with the wage issue. The two largest cities in New Mexico, Albuquerque and Santa Fe, have increased their minimum wage above the federal minimum wage...and I'm guessing the entire state will follow. Of course, now that NM cities have artificially raised the min. wage relative to other states, the ones affected are seeking more government intervention to offset the negative impact of the raise. Then the gov't. passes the cost of those subsidies onto the taxpayer, and taxpayers wind up paying for their own wage increase. Let's hope New Mexicans start eating a lot more enchiladas. All the chile I've tasted that's grown outside NM sucks...there's no heat to it.

ScottieK

[adios]

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I live in NM, and losing our chile crops would suck....but I'm sure other industries, regional and national, are trying to deal with the wage issue. The two largest cities in New Mexico, Albuquerque and Santa Fe, have increased their minimum wage above the federal minimum wage...and I'm guessing the entire state will follow. Of course, now that NM cities have artificially raised the min. wage relative to other states, the ones affected are seeking more government intervention to offset the negative impact of the raise. Then the gov't. passes the cost of those subsidies onto the taxpayer, and taxpayers wind up paying for their own wage increase. Let's hope New Mexicans start eating a lot more enchiladas. All the chile I've tasted that's grown outside NM sucks...there's no heat to it.

ScottieK

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A world without Hatch green chile? I shudder at the thought [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].