Sorry, I don’t do asparagus fields
Or do you know any Germans (or Americans) who would be willing to dig up white asparagus out in the hot sun a few weeks each spring for five or six euros (roughly $7 or $8) an hour? No, I don’t know many, either. But to make matters even worse, Polish workers, the traditional asparagus diggers/pickers in Germany, are starting to lose interest, too.
“Merkel’s government dropping German unemployment under the politically sensitive level of four million for the first time since 2002 really bites it,” says one irate asparagus farmer in Beelitz near Berlin. “As we all know, The German labor office says that 3.9 million people were without work in April, compared with 4.1 million in March and the postwar high of just above 5 million two years ago under Schröder. April's seasonally adjusted rate was 9.2 percent, compared with 11 percent in April 2006. *!#$?!#! What a catastrophe,” he said, kicking around in the dirt in rage.
“So like now that the Poles are jumping ship, how the hell are we going to call for the unemployed to help us?” he continued. “The few that are left are out there getting real jobs. I mean, does the government expect us to raise our wages or something? Then Germans would have to pay a fair price for the food they eat. And we both know that that’s never going to happen.”
“*!#$?!#!” he repeated. “These politicians are really a little weltfremd (live in an ivory-tower) sometimes.”
Feldarbeit ist nicht meine Welt.
“Merkel’s government dropping German unemployment under the politically sensitive level of four million for the first time since 2002 really bites it,” says one irate asparagus farmer in Beelitz near Berlin. “As we all know, The German labor office says that 3.9 million people were without work in April, compared with 4.1 million in March and the postwar high of just above 5 million two years ago under Schröder. April's seasonally adjusted rate was 9.2 percent, compared with 11 percent in April 2006. *!#$?!#! What a catastrophe,” he said, kicking around in the dirt in rage.
“So like now that the Poles are jumping ship, how the hell are we going to call for the unemployed to help us?” he continued. “The few that are left are out there getting real jobs. I mean, does the government expect us to raise our wages or something? Then Germans would have to pay a fair price for the food they eat. And we both know that that’s never going to happen.”
“*!#$?!#!” he repeated. “These politicians are really a little weltfremd (live in an ivory-tower) sometimes.”
Feldarbeit ist nicht meine Welt.
Kommentare auf Deutsch? Klar doch.
We better hurry up, introducing university tuition like in the US... keeps the service industry afloat. (Comment this)
Way back when, if you were a conscientous objector (i.e. you thought that the Cold War was a lie cooked up by Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, etc. and that the 350,000 Soviet troops were in the DDR because the weather was nicer than back in Russia) and didn't want to do military service, you had two options.
The first option was to head for (West) Berlin since it technically was not part of the BRD. All you had to do was find an empty apartment building to squat in and you were exempt. That's why Berlin had lefties that made the Shining Path look like the Young Republicans. They used to have great squatter riots back then.
The second option was Zivildienst where they gave you some job like working in a youth hostel. Now, all they have to do is rent out Zivildienst people to farmers to pick asparagus. For the farmers, they probably would be even cheaper than Poles. Some might actually prefer being outside to scrubbing toilets and mopping floors in a youth hostel. Some might think that military service doesn't sound so bad after all. Everybody wins! (Comment this)