President Trump’s tightened labor market is giving Maryland’s seafood industry reason to complain, mainly because they want to import more foreign workers to do U.S. blue-collar jobs.
For weeks, media outlets printed warnings from Maryland’s seafood companies of an impending “labor shortage” with the latest claims coming from the Wall Street Journal where businesses say they want more foreign workers to come to the U.S. through the H-2B visa program.
The complaints center around Maryland’s seafood industry and specifically crab-picking jobs. For decades, companies have imported mostly Mexican women to do the grueling crab-picking work, housing them in remote locations where they have little interaction outside of their job.
This year, seafood companies are complaining that they need more foreign workers. The Wall Street Journal reports:
The Chesapeake Bay Seafood Industries Association, which represents the roughly 20 licensed processors in Maryland, says this year’s randomized allocation has left the state’s industry short about 200 workers, almost half the seasonal workforce, typically all from Mexico.
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12 comments:
Baltimore has plenty of nonworking blacks that could be employed in the industry. Of course they would have to take a reduction in pay from 5 grand a week drug money to an hourly wage.
One side of me says cry me a river - since Americans won't take these jobs AND/OR rather be on EBT.
My other side screams HELP because those crabs need harvested!!
Can't have my cake and eat it too....why not?
In the beginning, packing houses paid crab pickers by the can. Pick more cans, get more pay. We had an ample supply of pickers from the local POC population. The Government stepped in and insisted that these pickers be paid by the hour, not by the can. The Unions stepped in and demanded higher hourly workers. Then the immigrants stepped in and offered to work for lower wages. Then the Government stepped in and demanded fewer immigration visas. That's were we are now.
this will be good for the crab population. Lets leave them alone this year and let them rebound.
12:31 great SWEEPING generalization of all blacks in Baltimore. There are jobs out there, foreigners never stole them. Americans are lazy and don't want to work-regardless of race. I'm sure you're an expert on Baltimore's economic woes from your house in the swamp
I am tired of hearing their whining.
I knew a white local chick that used to pick
They INSIST on using migrants because they take advantage of them
Crocodile tears.
Why isn't there a shortage in Ocean City? They need a lot more worker that than the seafood industry does. Just don't understand why no other industry is complaining about this.
There's pleanty of legal greencard Russians here every year. Maybe hire foreign workers like the russians who follow the laws and go back when they are done working?
what are the wages for a crab picker? It's not like crab meat is in one of the four food groups. It's a luxury food item. The earth will not stop spinning if Bubba doesn't have his beer and a crab cake. They are tasty and many people enjoy them but it only hurts a companies bottom line. Since they say Americans don't or won't do this job there will be no loss of employment for us, except maybe in any possible related industries.
But if anyone just has to have a crab cake why can't they pick their own crabs and make one. Shocker I know.
Quit selling crabmeat for $20.00 a pound and paying workers less than minimum wages to pick it out for you. No sympathy here. And if you go out of business, I will catch my own and pick them out. Your business won't be missed by me.
May 15, 2018 at 12:31 PM:
"Baltimore has plenty of nonworking blacks that could be employed in the industry."
Baltimore! Have you looked in your own backyard here on the Eastern Shore? No shortage of the same here. And welfare whites, too. The only difference here is that our "project" housing (Section 8) has a mix of recipients. Baltimore, no so much.
I do not know why they have to get Mexican to come and do the American job people are here to work but owners of businesses is not want to give them local job because they do not want to have to pay them minimum wage they want the government to pay for them is your paperwork for free so they will not have to pay the local people around here on the shore just cannot understand it why the homeless can not work
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