Here is something you probably didn't know:
The majority of goat herders in California — of which there are probably fewer than 100 — come on temporary work visas from Peru, usually staying for about three years.
Our goat herders come from Peru! The reason they're in the news is because of a mysterious change in their pay ordered by the Department of Industrial Relations and the Employment Development Department. In the past, goat herders were paid a set monthly amount, currently $3,853, which comes to $46,000 per year. But then they were suddenly reclassified as hourly workers making $15.50 per hour plus overtime. And since apparently goat herding is considered a 24/7 on-call job, that overtime adds up. The herders now make roughly $500 per day in base plus overtime, which comes to about $168,000 per year.
That's a lot of money for goat herding, which is mostly about getting goats to eat up flammable brush that can cause wildfires. Since goats will eat anything, they're particularly good at this as long as they're pointed in the right direction and kept from straying.
As for the goat herders' pay, no one seems to know what will happen. Even labor sympathizers agree that $168,000 per year is overdoing things, but the labor regulators have refused to comment on their reclassification. For now, everything is in limbo.
Goat herders would then make about as much as Congressional staffers.
Makes sense to me. The jobs are similar.
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Too bad this bitch isn’t a goat herder too. Be a more honest living than posting spam on blogs.
This is an unfortunate example of unwise regulation.
Fire prevention, such as using goats, are a clear social good. However, if California regulation increases the cost too high you get substitution, such as do nothing or use a weed whacker, likely with inferior outcomes.
And if we're talking about the same kind of thorny brush we have in WA (and I've seen goats being used to clear), probably a lot more lacerations for the people handling the weed whacker and, given the steep slopes involved, a lot of falling and rolling through thorny brush incidents. Holy workman's comp, Batman!
California should totally go the other way on this: legalizing the importation of Peruvian slaves who can be paid in just leftover food scraps from their owner’s kitchens. That would allow for hundreds more Peruvians to be brought in to goat herd, giving the original 100 or so the opportunity for days off. It’s a win-win!
Fuck off Middleoftheroaddem. You don’t give a shit about these workers, nor the state of California. You just want to roll the country back to 1850.
Is it too much for a 24/7 on-call job? Because being on-call 24/7 sounds inhumane and yeah, I'd expect to get paid a shit ton of money for it. Maybe they could figure out how to allow them some time off...
I had a job as a database administrator for a number of years at DEC in the late 70s. That included on-call duty. I could snap awake, deal with a problem, and drop right back to sleep. I wouldn't remember the call until my wife would ask me about it the next morning. I had to instruct the computer room staff to log the calls and have our liaison fill me in. Apparently I was very good at solving database and automation issues in my sleep. (But I didn't get extra pay for that.)
My first (and only) official 24/7 job with overtime pay (we called it wage class 3 - salary plus overtime) was in the late 90s at EMC. It was pretty lucrative. Every call meant credit for 4 hours. If they told me the problem had been resolved and closed the call - the next call was another 4 hours credit.
One of my colleagues had a major blow up over a long weekend, and they kept closing tickets despite him trying to tell them after the first couple of calls that they should keep it open and he'd stay on the line, and that they should still keep the ticket open if he had to catch some sleep. He wound up taking a lux European vacation with his wife on the earnings from that 3 day weekend. He looked like hell when he came in the Tuesday after the long weekend - but he said it was worth it for the money, and his manager chewed the hell out of the IT computer lab manager for having dumbass operators in the lab.
Presumably, if they hired 3x as many Peruvians, they could each take a shift (daytime, evening, overnight) and thus not have to be on call 24/7. Of course, 3x $46K = $138K so you’re almost right at the $168K that some are balking at paying now. (And if you wanted to give them all a day or two off per week, you’d need even more Peruvians, which would eat up that $30K “savings.”)
One man’s “oh my God bureaucrats are running amok” is another man’s “oh my God this particular employer depends on cheaply exploiting foreign workers who can’t flee inhumane working conditions because their work visa is tied to them staying in their current abusive job.”
You think paying someone the equivalent of $46k per year is "exploiting foreign workers" and is an "abusive job"? Are you nuts?
For a regular 9-5 job? Of course not. For a 24/7 on-call job? Absolutely!
It's too bad Americans are incapable of goat herding or too ... American to even want to learn. Sounds pretty lucrative, and you get to be outside.
There are lots and lots of high skill, near-zero pay jobs here in the US that we depend upon (illegal) immigrants to do. And then we disparage them -- and worse.
Yeah, if treating farming as a normal job for labor laws makes them ridiculously good I imagine Americans will be lining up to do them instead of relying on poorer foreigners barred by law from taking any other jobs.
- The late Anthony Bourdain on Mexican labor in restaurants, agriculture, and other labor intensive jobs
I agree but I think this is only half of the coin. The other is: if no American is willing to do the job, maybe the working conditions are unacceptable and should be improved?
This is particularly clear when it comes to the farming industry where the working conditions are appalling throughout.
Immigrants do these jobs because they are willing to accept lower pay and much worse living conditions than residents. As long as employers can get people to work at the low pay and under poor conditions why should they raise pay and improve conditions?
Having an unlimited labor supply from other countries keeps wages down and conditions bad for all those who compete at the lower end of the wage/skill scale. It is good for the upper-income people who get the services and the lower-priced goods.
Things would be different if we had reasonable minimum wage laws or if immigrants joined strong unions. But immigration is a major anti-union weapon for employers.
Right, my point is that saying "we need (often undocumented) immigrants to do this job because no American will" is misleading. No American will do the job because it's a horrible job, so maybe THAT is the problem?
And I'm all for more immigration, but not for exploiting immigrants with sub-minimum wage pay and appalling working conditions.
My wife would abandon us tomorrow if she could goat herd.
And we wonder why US Warships cost twice as much as they should.
To err is human.
To really foul things up requires a bureaucrat.
Bureaucrats can also kill bad projects. That was one of my father's sidelines in Hawaii state government. He was nominally working for the Agriculture Department, and then for the Department of Land and Natural Resources. His side job was as the hatchet man for several governors and some prominent legislators.
Basically investigating (and killing in some cases) dodgy proposals, projects, and in one case, the workmens compensation companies the state was paying to manage payments. That resulted in freezing and in some cases, rolling back rates after he worked out some arcane inclusions in workmens compensation law that allowed the companies to claim to the state that they were going bankrupt, while boasting to their stockholders that they were making huge profits on the business.
Hint - it really makes a difference exactly when you get to claim the actual expenses of a large payout for tax purposes versus how you actually FUND a large payout.
Being on call 24/7 and presumably 365 days a year is worth a hell of a lot more than $46K. I get paid more than double that and I refuse to work outside of normal business hours. So do most other people. People who *do* work 24/7 for periods of time (like doctors) certainly make well more than $168K… and even they don’t have to work 365 days a year.
The real story here is, if goat herding is worth doing, why do we need to import workers to do it? Is it because the pay per hour is so shitty that nobody but Peruvian immigrants with no recourse to permanent residency can be enticed to do it?
I expect there's a bigger pool of experienced goat herders in Peru than in California.
The skills of goatherding are probably more easily learned in Peru than California. But more importantly although technically it is a 24/7 job, the active amount of time spent on the task of goatherding is probably less than the average hourly worker spends on their tasks in an 8 hour shift. I imagine if the average american had the skills required and were aware of the job they would absolutely apply for it.