A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

I have been assigned a case to decide whether, what and who to prosecute. It is a case of a young woman (17 years old), an illegal alien farm worker, who died of a heat stroke while tending grape vines in San Joaquin County near Stockton.

She was wrapping vines in a vineyard which produces wine grapes for Two Buck Chuck. She had been given no "Heat Illness" training as is required. There wasn't any water readily available as required by law. There was no shade available as required. Plus, there was no air-conditioned area (such as an air conditioned vehicle) available for cool down.

She fainted and the forman told her boyfried that the day was about over so he should just wait a short while for the rest of the workers employed by Merced Farm Labor Contractors gathered to be transported back home. When the young woman didn't regain consciousness the forman told the boyfriend to tell the doctor that she had fallen and hit her head and that was why she was unconscious.

About an hour to an hour-and-a-half later she finally got to the hospital. She had a temperature of 108 degrees and died two days later without ever regaining consciousness.

If one googles her name Maria Isabel Vasquez Jiminez, one of the things that pops up is her story on the United Farm Workers (UFW) website. This is the union of Caesar Chavez and Viva la Raza.

Imagine a conservative Republican prosecuting greedy, exploitive capitalists! WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!

Once again a working class champion!

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

Go for capital punishment!!

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

I thought my cat had dribbled over my screen but then I reaslised it was your post.

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

i refuse to believe there wasn't water and shade available. it's a vineyard after all. secondly, she continued working herself, despite not being able anymore. the story doesn't say she was forced to. she was also stupid enough not to bring any drinks herself.
i'd agree the forman and farm deserve a punishment, but how imbeciles like this turn into heroes when they die -merely by their own stupidity- is beyond me. i think Darwin wrote something about people like her.

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

Even though the owner seems like a bastard, KoeN has a point.

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

you know, heat exhaustion isnt always immediately evident - which is why it still happens, plus if its just job and if you dont do it you dont get paid and dont have a job, thats a pretty lagre incentive to keep going, even if you do feel a little unwell

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

I thought conservative Republicans were the working class.

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

Seems like the details are a little sketchy. I could see this type of foreman not providing water and breaks to his illegal farm workers though.

Regardless, she isn't a hero by any stretch of the imagination. It's a sad case of a poorly educated 17 year old illegal immigrant worker being denied basic worker's rights, which is the main reason she died.

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

No.

She is the victim

and dda is the hero

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

There's nothing remotely heroic here.

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

I think it's heroic that people still want to wade through rivers, climb over fences and cross deserts, and be paid pretty much the same wage they'd get at home, with worse conditions and fewer rights, simply because IT'S THE USA.

Either that or stupid. Shall we have a poll?

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

Close, but October's Rural Development journal from the Department of Agriculture says average farm labourer earns about $11/day in Mexico, estimated average illegal farm labourer earns about $4/hour in the United States.

So, really not close.

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

Wherever it was that the short bus dropped you off at in the morning, it sure as hell wasn't at a school that did Economics.

What about relative cost of living?

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

I know things have changed a bit since you emigrated to the US, but I'm pretty sure British Airways were offering flights there :confused:

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

I hear US bankers are going in the opposite direction these days

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

From Mexico?

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

What about it?

I don't know how much Mexicans spend to live in the US and I don't know how much they earn; but I do know that in 2007 they sent 24 billion dollars to Mexico in the form of remittances to support their families back home (and that's just counting the money that flowed through banks and wire services and thus could be counted). Please note: that 24 billion dollars came out of the difference between what they earned here and what it cost them to live here (i.e., net income). Given that not every Mexican sends all their income home, the total net income of all Mexican workers in the US is undoubtedly much higher.

Mexico suffers from high unemployment and, especially, underemployment. There just aren't tens of billions of dollars' worth of jobs lying around to keep those workers at home.

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

But if you DO have a job, how does the cost of living compare when looking at fruit picking wages in the US and in Mexico?

But I'm not looking at whether or not it's easier to find a job in the US picking fruit than it is in Mexico. I'm looking at whether the quality of life for a Mexican fruit picker picking fruit in in Mexico is better than a Mexican fruit picker picking fruit in the US.

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

the people who make the journey aren't buying like for like.

they are buying what the US sells.

They buy the idea that they can achieve more. the fact that they can't is irrelevant to them.

America sows dreams and reaps a harvest of that hope.

Is it bad? is it good? evil? inspirational? purely self interested? Does it matter?

It is what it is. The system that is the US deliberately adopts policies which encourage them to come. Then the citizens of that system bitch about the effects of that same system.

The two facts; the american dream and migration of unpermitted workers are fundamentally intertwined. All you have to remember is that like most complicated truths it is not a two sided argument; it is four sided. 1) the migrants harm local jobs, 2) the migrant workers help local economy, 3) the US exploits innocents, 4) the US gives them hope.

Tacitus will be 1) and 4). Personally I am all 4.

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

I don't know. I think Mexicans can and should make that determination for themselves.
I don't know what 'quality of life' means, or if it means the same thing to different people. No one is forcing Mexicans to come here and no one is forcing them to stay here. If they don't find their 'quality of life' here to their liking then they should leave.

Of course, if they come here illegally that puts them at a further disadvantage; but that's part of the calculus too. In general, I'd prefer the US return to more open borders but we all have to live with the laws we have and not the laws we wish we had.
Actually, I'm 'none of the above.' All of these arguments were made even back when we had more-or-less unlimited legal immigration and they're still irrelevant.

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

rather silly to think either that:

a) that makes them old arguments
b) that makes them wrong

still, characteristic at least.

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

For those who wish to go back to a more open border, the news is good. The Obama administration and the Democrats are very much inclined to allow more immigration. Whether it is good or bad wil soon be irrelevant as the Republicans and even the American citizenry do not have the clout to stop what is going to happen in this regard.

Did I mention that Arnold S. Governor of the Great State of California attended the funeral to show the compassionate side of Republicans?

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

I suspect that the tree-huging, fag-loving, not religious nutcase Arnold will be booted out of the Republican Party, or leave himself.

If not, I will be disappointed with Rove & co :p

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

Arnold has never been a Republican. He has turned out to be a very weak governor. I long for the return of Gray Davis.

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

nothing much changes around here.

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

we like consistency

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

But we can enjoy old songs from the spanish civil war in a new version.

Brigada Bravo&Diaz, http://www.germandiaz.net/inicio_eng.html.

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

You lost that one didn't you?

So, sad songs, then.

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

remember the war against Franco,
that was the kind were each of us belongs,
'though he may have won all the battles,
we had all the good songs!

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

I'd imagine. Still taking the taxi everywhere?

Re: A Working Class Hero Once Again
 

only when i can't walk - 'carbon footprint' you understand ;)