[lbo-talk] let them eat e. coli Re: was luther's revenge

shag shag at cleandraws.com
Tue Oct 14 17:14:31 PDT 2008


At 03:20 PM 10/14/2008, Shane Mage wrote:


>I don't get it. Interns are *apprentices* learning a trade. Without
>knowing anything else about the specific case, I do know from shag's
>account that these apprentices are learning a trade, living cost- free,
>and receiving a substantial cash-stipend besides. I am also
>sure that there were precious few apprentices in history who would not
>envy the working conditions, living conditions, and remuneration of
>those "eight interns."
>
>Shane Mage

right. that's why adjuncts get paid $1500/semester. Because they are still *in training* for their profession, having been unable to secure ye olde status of "assistant" on the way to becoming "associate". Next time someone here whines about the pay for adjuncts, I'll tell them to shut their yap: they're getting a fine fucking salary considering what they might have had in the whole wide history of apprenticeships in the professions and crafts.

the other day, I was witness to a conversation which made clear that part of our company's refusal to hire over the past year is that they assumed they could pile the work on because they felt that we'd consider ourselves *lucky* to have a job. We'd very nearly be the objects of envy for damn near five counties!

sheeeeit: in history, i should have told 'em, there are many many workers who would *envy* my job, so I ought to be pleased as a clam in deep water to work that extra 10 hrs a week, under a tight pace, working through lunch 'n' shit.

but let's get down to brass tacks and put a price tag on what they're getting: training, food, shelter, and $100 clams a month. (no health insurance, no retirement pay, zippo.)

100$/month is their wage, plus room and board. around here, you can share a room in a 3 br house with your own bath for $400/month inclusive (pays for your utilities: heat, electric, cable tv in your room, internet connex, water/sewer/trash).

So I guess the market equivalent would be $300/month in Staunton, VA. Figure $300/month for food -- that's about what we spend for 2 ppl, and I buy crap like salmon and shrimp.

They make 700/month for 40 hr weeks, plus an extra 8 hr day every three weeks. (I assume 8 hrs because the web site doesn't say)

At 40 x 4.3 + extra 8 hr day every three weeks = 180 hrs worked /month. that's $3.88/hr. Divided in $700/month. *

Value of the training. Oh, hey, go with Virginia Tech's rate, since it's the "real" Virginia. That's $800 worth of education for the equivalent of a semester, one course. 4 month term at the farm is about similar to a semester. $800/4 = $200/month.

So, they make an extra $200/month. So, that's, oh let's round up and make it $1000 salary/month, $5.55/hr. (no health care, I presume, though he'll probably have to carry insurance for any injuries. Certainly no retirement benefits. Paid vacation? Doubt it.)

Let's be generous and figure they're getting the equivalent of 2 courses worth -- 6 whole hours a week is devoted to their lack of knowledge, teaching them and making the poor Saletins suffer under the burden of having to actually train people to work their farm. voila - $6.66/hr. awesome number.

Hell, make it a full semester, 4 courses, 12 credits worth of larnin'. That's the equivalent of $1500/month. A whopping 8.33/hr in the form of room, board, a semester's tuition at Virginia Tech, and $100/month "spending money".

That isn't a white collar salary, any way you slice it. Double it, and it *maybe* gets close to a white collar salary in C'ville -- or Staunton.

Make it University of Virginia in C'ville. Full year = $9,490; so half = $4745. Which is, per month, $1086. That's $1786/month divided by 180 hrs worked per month = $9.22/hr.

Oh hey, Bob Jones university! How about that one? Because they're getting a healthy heapin' assload of religulous training down on the farm, too. That *is* priceless.

*I* don't think that someone should automatically be paid *that* much *less* because they are learning on the job. I'm learning on *my* job every day. I get paid a premium for my experience, but let me tell you something: it is 50% more than an entry-level coder.

Salatin is raking in considerably more at an hourly rate of between $400 - $800/hr as a speaker, if he spends a whole day speaking.

If you've ever worked on a farm, it doesn't take that much skill to be a contributing member of the workforce. That is why I'm valuing the education for you -- because that is what they are there for, to get some larnin' from Joel Saletin.

Fine, but even if you figure it's like a whole semester of courses full-time at a state or private college, they are *still* not getting the equivalent of a white collar salary in that area which is, as I said, $45K for a QA tester -- who gets breakfast and lunch at work, health benefits, retirement, vacation pay, and such. (Of course, you *could* argue that tuition doesn't pay the freight of what an education *really* costs, b/c you have to factor in all that foundation money and grant money and whatnot.)

My point, to remind you, is twofold:

1. Saletin said this, "Frankly, any city person who doesn't think I deserve a white-collar salary as a farmer doesn't deserve my special food. Let them eat E. coli."

(*His* special food. *rolls eyes* so much for community!)

He thinks he deserves a white collar income, but he can't be bothered to pay people what they deserve. He doesn't even reach min. wage. Cheeerist -- at least the kids interning for an area creative agency get the minimum wage b/c their internship is supplemented by the university b/c at some point we deemed it wrong to allow people to intern via publicly funded universities for nothing. Even factoring in a full semester's worth of a full-time education at a private, elite university, he's not paying $20/hr plus benefits.

He employs 8-10 people a year at substandard wages. That is twice the size of his family of mother, wife, himself, three children. 2/3 of his labor force who are involved in direct production are paid a substandard wage. (most of the work done on a farm is done between end of May and beginning of October.)

Salatin is the one who waxes rhapsodic about the benefits of meeting the people who eat your food and who make your food. He's the one who thinks community and the local is so important that he charges less for a tour if you live *close* to his farm. If I went, I'd have to pay $500 and if you went, you'd have to pay $1000. If anyone wants the pleasure of his company for two hours, it is $1000 no matter where you live.

He charges different rates because he values face-to-face community and thinks he is contributing to the wonderfulness of his community (whaddaguy). Note: apparently his community is the five counties around Staunton. What a fucking loaded term *that* is. Community consists of a five county rural area? *snort* I live 30 miles from the state line. If I lived in NC, I wouldn't be "community" enough to benefit from the $500 (reduced) state rate.

whadda douchebag.

2. Pollan apparently can't be bothered to share any of this information, even though interns were employed there when he was visiting the farm. Pollan doesn't *care* about that issue and *won't* explore it.

Pollan, way more than Joel, is making the argument that it is the reconnection with nature and community, keeping it local, working together side by side, that will restore a bit of humanity such that we'll treat each other better.

I'm sorry: don't see it. The guy, who clearly works alongside his family, still uses the term "my food" as if he made it by his lonesome.

And I'll bet you that most people running these farms are like Saletin, looking for any way to underpay people for their labor. Why? Because *that* is what drives the petty bourgeois mind in its struggle to compete and survive.

March, march, march to the beat of the capitalist drum. They *have* to. It's a structural imperative of the system.

They can blab blab blab *about* community, but that structural imperative prevents them from actually experiencing any connection on the farm at all. And so, it makes perfect sense to pay people shit wages and call it gold bullion.

An inexperienced farm hand, why shouldn't that person earn $20/hr? Hmmm? That's what entry level white collar worker earns in *my* neck of the woods -- someone in great need of training. Why is the most he can do the functional equivalent of *maybe* $12/hr?

And don't get me started on the skills he expects them to bring to the table, as if those skills are valueless! As if he wouldn't be a nice idea to pay those people for something that I know from personal experience *is* difficult to find in the workforce:

"Bright eyed, bushy-tailed, self-starter eager-beaver situationally aware go-get-'em, teachable, positive, non-complaining, grateful, rejoicing get'erdone dependable, faithful, perseverant take-responsibility clean-cut, all American boy-girl appearance characters. We are very, very, very discriminatory. "

But the petty bourgeois and all of us who march march march to the beat of Capital cannot get beyond treating *nature* better. That's where it ends for them. It does not extend to treating other people, people on whom we depend to make a living, as worthy.

They can't because the logic of a market economy -- not the globalization of *food* that is Pollan's enemy -- will drive them to exploit the very people they look at in the face every day.

Speaking of, why interns? Why not just give a migrant family one of the trailers in exchange for their labor year round, a stable source of income. A lifetime of stability for a family of four or five or maybe more.

Noooooooooooooo. Saletin needs to spread the gospel. He doesn't think the 20-somethings apprenticing are providing cheap labor. He, like my employer, thinks that he is doing the interns a favor by giving them the job and all that training! (My employer, at the opening of a contract they tried to get us to sign, went on four a lengthy paragraph about all the great things they do for us, so therefore we should sign over our intellectual property rights. We, of course, don't do shit for them. That was never acknowledged: that we make their profits. Of course not. And, for Joel Saletin, he'd never fancy it that way about his farm hands, though he certainly gets all happy thinking about letting a chicken be a chicken, a cow be the cow it wants to be, the pig being the pig it is driven to be: snortin around in shit, rutting after alcohol laced corn.

So, no, no way would we hire a migrant family to labor the farm for free room and board and a stipend. Because then you wouldn't get to spread the gospel -- both the gospel of the polyculture farm and the gospel of christianity, bob jones style.

http://cleandraws.com Wear Clean Draws ('coz there's 5 million ways to kill a CEO)



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