NoNAIS.org

Coming soon to a lab near you! Plum Island is moving onto mainland USA. They say it will be safe but remember the disease leak in England recently with Foot & Mouth Disease (FMD).

A federal laboratory off Long Island, known as the “Alcatraz for animal disease,” may move to the U.S. mainland as part of a new $450 million research center.

Plans for the next-generation National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility, slated to go online by 2013, include biosafety labs where scientists, clad in outfits resembling spacesuits and tethered to air supplies, would research diseases that can spread to people from animals
-MSNBC

Remember that it was a laboratory working on FMD that released it “accidentally” thus causing the deaths of cattle on farms nearby. The massive 2001 outbreak of FMD is thought to have come from a similar incidence - that resulted in the deaths of over 6 million livestock as well as many farmers.

Given that it is the USDA who is making this move, if I were of a conspirital paranoid mind set, I would very seriously wonder if they are doing it so that they can more easily release disease into our farmlands and thus justify programs like the mandatory National Animal Identification System (NAIS) and 10-kilometer kill zones.

Hat tip to Sue.

I was reading in the newspaper that Vermont was doing air drops from low flying planes of oral rabies vaccine to combat rabies in wild animals. Today I read that the USDA is doing that too. A good thing for sure - rabies is nasty.

That leads me to wonder why we are required to go to a veterinarian to get a rabies vaccine for our dogs when we could be giving them a safe, stable oral vaccine. The reason I have been told before is that the vaccine is too fragile and must be handled properly. Obviously that is no longer the case. Besides, I and probably most other farmers as well as many homesteaders know how to give injections, handle refrigerated vaccines and the like. We already have to handle other vaccines and such.

We often take our livestock guardian dogs (LGDs) to the low priced town clinics but then there’s always the question with so many other dogs there of disease spread like “Kennel Cough” that recently showed up. Then there’s the possibility of dog fights. I know our dogs are trained to mind but I don’t trust other people’s dogs - I’d feel real bad if one of their little pooches attacked our LGDs and got eaten. One mouthful.

I strongly believe in vaccination to prevent disease and I vaccinate ours beyond the requirements. But, it’s a major hassle and cost to take five big livestock guardian dogs to a vet. It is a long distance so that means multiple trips - not all of them can be away from the livestock at one time. I would like to have the option of doing our own vaccinations.

If the real issue is that the state wants verification of vaccination then simply ask for a receipt for the vaccine and a signed statement. After all, we do that for so many other things. The current law requiring a vet visit won’t make a dishonest person do it nor would a little trust make an honest person lie. Heck, we might even get more compliance with rabies vaccinations if it were easier to do.

The only other reason I can think of for rabies vaccines being required to be given by vets is to get them a little extra business. That would be uncharitable of me to think that so it must be one of the above outdated reasons above. It is time for us to move on and let us do our own vaccinations.

I’ve frequently heard the excuse from the Department of Agriculture and people quoted in the newspaper that:

[They’re] unable to find enough qualified local people willing to do milking and other chores at the 380-cow dairy farm. Four [illegal alien] Mexicans are employed at Foster Brothers Farm, he said.
-Ted Foster in the Burlington Freepress

and…

Vermont agricultural officials estimate there are more than 2,000 migrant workers, mostly Mexicans, employed on dairy farms in the state. Many of the workers are believed to have entered the country illegally. Farmers say the workers are needed because they can’t find people locally who are willing to do the manual labor the jobs require.
-VT Ag Secretary article Burlington Freepress

This has puzzled me. I know a lot of carpenters and loggers who do manual labor. Stone cutting, lawn care, ditch digging all seem to be able to find plenty of workers without resorting to hiring illegals. I do my own chores as do other farmers I know. I can easily complete the chores each day, although the list of improvements I want to do does seem endless.

We only have 40 sows and 150 pigs at Sugar Mountain Farm so we’re not that big. Lets assume Mr. Foster’s farm is so large he can’t get all the work done himself. That doesn’t mean he needs to break the law and hire illegal aliens. Even worse he brags about it in the newspaper and nothing happens to him or the illegal aliens working for him. I know there are plenty of legal residents willing to work and do manual labor despite Mr. Foster’s claim about Vermonter’s being lazy, er, I mean unwilling to do the manual labor the jobs require. Fact is Vermonters are a hard working lot.

So why can’t people like Mr. Foster find help? Why is his brother-in-law, the Governor, saying he should get a “stay out of jail free” card? Why is the Department of Agriculture excusing and even condoning this illegal behavior? Surely there must be a reason… Turns out there is one - it’s an exemption in the pay scale that creates an unlivable wage:

29 CFR 780.300 - Statutory exemptions in section 13(a)(6). Statutory Provisions

Section Number: 780.300
Section Name: Statutory exemptions in section 13(a)(6). Statutory Provisions

Section 13(a)(6) of the Act exempts from the minimum wage requirements of section 6 and from the overtime pay requirements of section 7:

Any employee employed in agriculture: (A) If such employee is employed by an employer who did not, during any calendar quarter during the preceding calendar year, use more than 500 man-days of agricultural labor, (B) if such employee is the parent, spouse, child, or other member of his employer’s immediate family, (C) if such employee (i) is employed as a hand harvest laborer and is paid on a piece-rate basis in an operation which has been, and is customarily and generally recognized as having been, paid on a piece- rate basis in the region of employment, (ii) commutes daily from his permanent residence to the farm on which he is so employed, and (iii) has been employed in agriculture less than 13 weeks during the preceding calendar year, (D) if such employee (other than an employee described in clause (C) of this subsection) (i) is 16 years of age or under and is employed as a hand harvest laborer, is paid on a piece-rate basis in an operation which has been, and is customarily and generally recognized as having been, paid on a piece-rate basis in the region of employment, (ii) is employed on the same farm as his parent or person standing in the place of his parent, and (iii) is paid at the same piece rate as employees over age 16 are paid on the same farm, or (E) if such employee is principally engaged in the range production of livestock.
-US Department of Labor

That rule is limited to “small farms”: “Farm workers employed on small farms (i.e., those that used less than 500 “man‑days” of farm labor in any calendar quarter of the preceding calendar year);” but realize that what they mean by small and what you mean by small are not necessarily the same thing. Realize that “500 man-days is approximately the equivalent of seven employees employed full-time in a calendar quarter.” Wow! You can have a pretty good sized farm for that labor level. Sure, it’s not much for Wisconsin but in Vermont that’s big. This explains why our dear Governor Douglas is so interested in helping his family illegally hire illegal aliens to steal work from legal Vermonters.

Realize that not only are these employers exempt from minimum wage and overtime requirements and they getting to offer less than minimum wage but these workers on farms don’t get any tips. This same below minimum wage is paid wait staff at restaurants but they get tips to make up the difference.

Okay, so what if Mr. Foster and employers like him don’t qualify for this exemption? Perhaps they have other reasons for not wanting to hire legal workers. After all, with legal workers you have to pay worker’s compensation, overtime, medicare, social security taxes and such. By avoiding all of that they can gain a competitive edge over their honest competition who must pay these costs.

Are employers like Mr. Foster offering the minimum wage or something more? If people won’t take that job then that means they’re not offering enough. According to the Vermont Labor Statistics the minimum pay on construction work is $11.00. That’s fairly similar work to farming. In fact, many farmers also do construction, trucking and logging. This means Mr. Foster needs to compete with that wage. If he’s offering less to his illegal alien Mexican workers then he is not only cheating his honest competition and local legal residents but he’s also cheating the Mexican workers who he’s illegally employing for less than the market wage.

I understand that the Governor’s family doesn’t want to pay a competitive wage that would attract good local workers and raise their costs to be the same as honest farmers. Heck, some years I don’t earn minimum wage and I own our farm, except what I owe the bank. But their solution is ethically, morally and legally wrong.

There are a great many honest farmers who are not hiring illegal aliens. They are being put at a competitive disadvantage by Mr. Foster, Secretary Albee and our dear Governor. I’m sure they would love to save money and lower their work load but they resist the temptation to break the law through hiring illegals.

I’m not arguing for or against minimum wages. I’m not arguing for or against exemptions. I am just noticing why some employers feel they need to break the law, cheat their honest competitors and diss local citizens by hiring illegal aliens. They claim they can’t find willing workers but that is because they’re offering too low a wage. If they offered a competitive wage in the market they would get good, legal workers. Hiring illegally as they’re doing cheats everyone including the illegal aliens.

There’s the little detail of what they said about Vermonter’s not being willing to do manual labor. Calling Vermonter’s lazy is unnecessary and mean. Mr. Foster and Agriculture Secretary Albee owe Vermont workers an apology.

I don’t like is that the Governor’s involved in nepotism, bending the law for his family while he tries to force mandatory programs like NAIS down our throats. It rubs me really wrongly to have his family admit in the newspaper article that they hire illegal aliens and to have him not do his job of arresting them. If he is going to talk the talk of less government interference in how we run our farms then he needs to walk the walk. If he doesn’t want us to care that they hire illegal aliens then he better not try to force the rest of us to tag and report our every animal. We don’t need his permission or hypocritical interference in our traditional farming.

By the way, you can leave comments both here and on the two Burlington Freepress articles: One and two. Let them know what you think. If enough people speak up perhaps the Governor and his family will stop getting special treatment. Even better, they’ll understand why we don’t like their Nanny State micro-managing of our lives and stop their heavy handed regulations like NAIS, REAL ID, PAWS and so many other interferences in people’s lives.

“Less government is still too much.”