We’ll pick our own damned asparagus thank you
It’s Spargel (asparagus) season now again and this is a good thing. The natives love asparagus. They prefer native asparagus, too. They love their pointy little heads and the hollandaise sauce and the Katenschinken or Schnitzel on the side and basically just eat the hell out of this stuff for a month or two during the early spring every year. They don’t particularly care to pick asparagus, however. And that is why this type of work is usually left up to Poles who are more than willing to come over here by the thousands and knock themselves out for an hourly wage of 5 euros an hour.
Sound familiar? You know, like the migrant Mexicans who harvest all the produce in the Southwest of the US for us? But now a new law has taken effect that will radically change everything (not) and the German employment office (they call it the Job Agency now) is seeing to it that only 80 to 90 percent of last year’s foreign seasonal workers will be hired again. Unemployed Germans are supposed to pick up the slack.
You read right. Unemployed natives doing back-breaking work for a meager 5 euros an hour? Sure, for about an hour or so. Or do you know anybody in California who would harvest lettuce for 6 dollars an hour? Anybody who hasn’t just escaped Mexico, I mean? No, I didn’t think so.
It’s a good idea, I suppose, unemployment being what is is these days and all, but this is another one of those good ideas that are more, well, symbolic in nature, theoretically sound but a flop in practice. So it’s time to send this one back to the drawing board again, I would say. And with any luck, the guys who’ll be working on the next plan will be wolfing down asparagus in their cafeteria for lunch tomorrow.
Bloß nachher riecht es so komisch, wenn man aufs Klo geht.
Kommentare auf Deutsch? Logisch.
The same procedure as last year? Same procedure as every year. (Comment this)
I do like Spargel, though, and paying 40€ / 100g doesn't exactly blow my skirt up.... (Comment this)