Accidents Hurt, Safety Doesn't, Insurance & OSHA - Jim Lummus, National Pork Board, from the 2011 Iowa Pork Congress, January 26-27, 2011, Des Moines, IA, USA.
Accidents Hurt, Safety Doesn't, Insurance & OSHA - Drs. Kelley Donham and Patrick O'Shaughnessy, Iowa Center for Agricultural Safety & Health, from the 2011 Iowa Pork Congress, January 26-27, 2011, Des Moines, IA, USA.
"We are in America, %@$@ it, they should speak English!!!"
This is what a farm manager told me sometime ago as he complained about his newly hired Latino employees speaking Spanish at work and him and other employees not being able to understand what they were saying…
"If they want to speak Spanish, he continued, they can do that at home, not here. When they are at work, they should speak English, English, English!!!"
He told me this in a very demanding tone. I guess he thought that if he were demanding enough the situation would change.
Easier said than done, I thought…
This manager worked for a company that had turned to the available Latino workforce as an option to fill the jobs it couldn’t fill with native U.S. workers. This, of course, brought with it a new set of challenges.
From the Pork Academy at the World Pork Expo, Orlando Gil provides us with an interesting perspective on multicultural farm labor employment, reasons for immigration, and the barriers they encounter.
As the average age of farm operators continues to escalate, in spite of spiraling unemployment, Hispanics and other minorities are facing challenges that impact farm productivity. How are they engaging social issues and mainstream impressions and how does that impact your potential for hiring workers?
Gil examines a few of our options, such as high school students, immigration alternatives, and other issues worth considering.
USDA's Agricultural Research Service has announced initial results of a research project involving prion-free cattle, animals that were genetically modified to not produce the protein that has been linked to BSE
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