[Market-farming] Wages
Andy Fellenz
fellenz at fltg.net
Tue Mar 24 22:22:51 EDT 2009
You need to start fishing in a different part of the wage pool. If you
pay junk, that's what you'll get. In a previous career I was involved
in hiring and managing hourly employees for factory work and always
found that by going a few dollars an hour above the local prevailing
wage I would gain access to a much higher quality employee. If you
can't afford to pay a higher wage, you need to look at what you can do
to make your farm a preferred work place.
For me, it has helped that I am flexible on work hours and don't get
real uptight when some of my guys have a manana attitude where showing
up at 8:10 is as close as they can get to 8:00 - they just stay a little
longer at the end of the day and still get the work done. I don't pay
my guys a whole lot, but I do offer health insurance and a flexible work
schedule to accomodate their college classes or just their desire to
work less than 40 hours a week. For me, I've found it better to hire 4
people at 30 hours a week than 3 at 40 hours a week. Getting good 40
hour a week people would be more expensive than the 30 hour a week
people and I would also lose some of the flexibility I have with my
part-timers. As the farm grows, I'll need to revisit this, learn
spanish and figure out a way to pay enough to get some good full timers.
Regarding WWOOFERS, I can't imagine finding a pole long enough that I
would use to touch this type of help. I like my employees to come to
work in the morning and go home in the evening, I definitely don't want
to live with them. They need their time and I need mine.
Andy
Allan Balliett wrote:
> We are really getting the shaft on our H2-A farm workers this season.
> Until they arrive, I'm hiring local people to help on the farm. It's
> a nightmare, really. The average person doesn't last more than 3 days
> (and by 'day,' I actually mean 4-6 hours) and doesn't arrive on time
> on any of those days.
>
> I'm looking now to try to hire some High School students. Local
> farmers have told me that I should pay High School students about $5
> an hour. That seems very light to me, but, then again, $8.50 to $10
> we offer adult workers seems very high for what we are getting in
> return. (In fact, what we get in return is VERY depressing when I
> look at what it costs us. Worse, of course, is how much of my own
> time is consumed in just the acting hiring and re-hiring. Oh, here's
> a new time waster: this is the first year we've had 'shopping
> WWOOFERS," wwoofers who want to come to the farm for a tour to see if
> they want to come back later and wwoof. I've yet to understand how
> come people think I've got so much time. I should have gone into
> soybeans, I think.)
>
> Anyway, sorry for the tirade.
>
> Thanks
>
> -Allan in WV
> _______________________________________________
> Market-farming mailing list
> Market-farming at lists.ibiblio.org
> http://lists.ibiblio.org/mailman/listinfo/market-farming
>
>
>
>
More information about the Market-farming
mailing list