Goats
(Image credit: Mark Ralston/Getty Images)

The threat to good, American jobs at Western Michigan University is not immigrants or even robots but a team of brush-clearing goats for hire. The goats' efficient landscaping work was raised the ire of a labor union, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), which argued in a formal grievance the goats are stealing union workers' jobs.

The university says the goats are the most cost-effective and sustainable way to clear the brush. "For the second summer in a row, we've brought in a goat crew to clear undergrowth in a woodlot, much of it poison ivy and other vegetation that is a problem for humans to remove," a school representative said. "Not wanting to use chemicals, either, we chose the goat solution to stay environmentally friendly."

As for how many humans the goats can realistically replace, The Washington Post calculates a single worker equipped with a tractor can clear as much brush as 3,600 goats in one month of work. With just 20 goats munching at Western Michigan, the union is fighting for a fraction of a job.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up
To continue reading this article...
Continue reading this article and get limited website access each month.
Get unlimited website access, exclusive newsletters plus much more.
Cancel or pause at any time.
Already a subscriber to The Week?
Not sure which email you used for your subscription? Contact us
Bonnie Kristian

Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.