"Most American dairy cows are milked by immigrants. On Dale Hemminger's farm in upstate New York, the cows are milked by robots. When a cow wants to be milked, it walks up to a machine that cleans its udder, attaches cups to its teats, draws the milk and dispenses a treat. In a barn that Hemminger plans to open this year, other robots will roam the floor like little automated pooper scoopers, picking up manure."
"President Donald Trump should pay a visit. He might learn something about the limits of his plan to improve the fortunes of U.S. workers by forcing immigrants to leave the country. There is a big hole in the seductively simple argument that Trump's policy will push employers to hire Americans: For many jobs, the cheaper and more likely replacement is a robot. And the jobs that can't be done by robots? Many will simply leave the country."
"The real choice Farmers, in particular, are not facing a choice between employing immigrants and hiring Americans. Many of the jobs performed by immigrants are best understood as a kind of mirage. They exist only because immigrants are available to perform them. The most important reason, of course, is that recent immigrants often work for much lower wages than Americans. They also are more willing to do the dirty, dangerous and demanding jobs most Americans won't even consider."
Robots are replacing many agricultural tasks, such as robotic milking and automated manure collection, on some dairy farms. Automation offers a cheaper and more likely replacement for jobs currently held by immigrants. Many of those jobs exist because immigrants accept lower wages and perform dirty, dangerous, and demanding work that most Americans avoid. Forcing immigrants to leave would therefore accelerate adoption of machines or encourage relocation of work overseas. The trend continues a long historical pattern of employers substituting machines for human labor when cost-effective.
Read at www.mercurynews.com
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