Arugula and McCain

John McCain doesn’t think America labor would pick lettuce for $50 and hour, only immigrants would be willing to work for such cheap wages. Classy, McCain, classy indeed¹

Sen. John McCain threatened on Tuesday to cut short a speech to union leaders who booed his immigration views and later challenged his statements on organized labor and the Iraq war.

“If you like, I will leave,” McCain told the AFL-CIO’s Building and Construction Trades Department, pivoting briefly from the lectern. He returned to the microphone after the crowd quieted.
. . .
Later, the senator outlined his position on the Senate immigration debate, saying tougher border enforcement must be accompanied by guest-worker provisions that give illegal immigrants a legal path toward citizenship.

Murmurs from the crowd turned to booing. “Pay a decent wage!” one audience member shouted.

“I’ve heard that statement before,” McCain said before threatening to leave.
. . .
But he took more questions, including a pointed one on his immigration plan.

McCain responded by saying immigrants were taking jobs nobody else wanted. He offered anybody in the crowd $50 an hour to pick lettuce in Arizona.

Shouts of protest rose from the crowd, with some accepting McCain’s job offer.

“I’ll take it!” one man shouted.

McCain insisted none of them would do such menial labor for a complete season. “You can’t do it, my friends.”

Some in the crowd said they didn’t appreciate McCain questioning their work ethic.

“I was impressed with his comedy routine and ability to tap dance without music. But I was impressed with nothing else about him,” said John Wasniewski of Milwaukee. “He’s supposed to be Mr. Straight Talk?”

[From This Modern World » Blog Archive » Republican Elitist Watch]

Maybe there’s a typo here, but $50 an hour is pretty damn good wage for an hourly employee. $50 per hour, 40 hours a week would be $2,000 a week, or $8,000 a month. If the work was available all year², that would be $96,000 a year. Much better than working at Wal-Mart or even as an electrician³.

Footnotes:

1. in the sense of ignorance of class [↩]
2. I’m not sure, but say for argument that Southern California’s lettuce plantations grew lettuce every month, which is somewhat plausible [↩]
3. our guy is charging us $25 an hour, though I assume he isn’t union [↩]