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Comment by mcv | Hacker News Reader

I think part of the consideration is that if they pay fruit pickers more now, they fear they may have to pay them more in the future as well. It's also possible they simply refuse to pay fruit pickers more because they strongly believe fruit pickers don't deserve better pay.

There are often a lot more factors at play in these sort of things. Some rational, some maybe not so much.

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So they set a whole season's profits on fire to stick it to seasonal workers? That seems so irrational as to require at least a smidgen of evidence to take seriously.

Ever hear about NYC landlords who leave ground level properties vacant for years because they'd rather lock in a high paying tenant. Same principal.

“The works of the roots of the vines, of the trees, must be destroyed to keep up the price, and this is the saddest, bitterest thing of all. Carloads of oranges dumped on the ground. The people came for miles to take the fruit, but this could not be. How would they buy oranges at twenty cents a dozen if they could drive out and pick them up? And men with hoses squirt kerosene on the oranges, and they are angry at the crime, angry at the people who have come to take the fruit. A million people hungry, needing the fruit- and kerosene sprayed over the golden mountains. And the smell of rot fills the country.”

What is this from? Obviously it was written a long time ago, but what a travesty.

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