I keep hearing it said, jobs we don't want to do, or we won't do.

[Ironpost]

Trouble with that train of thought is the fact that no jobs were going without being done before this onslaught of immigrants. I mean really was there.

[Clark2008]

1. I just want a job

:cry:

(I mean that pays more than $5.15 a hour).

[htuttle]

2. But you used to be able to live on those jobs

It's not the work that's the problem, it's the pay. If you can't live indoors on your pay, why bother to work?

[John BigBootay]

65. I can only speak from my own experience here...

but when I was growing up in Washington state, we had a lot of picking going on there-- still do. But the difference is that me and a lot of my friends took those picking jobs in the summer months during high school and college years.

We weren't supporting families, we were getting extra cash to pay for school expenses and fun. Same was true of my friends who worked in restaurants. Hell, I also bussed tables during college years for extra cash.

These jobs, as far as I can tell, were NEVER intended to support families on. Basically, there was no intention to these jobs at all-- they were there for those who wanted or needed a basic low-pay / low-skill job.

Where folks get the idea that ANY job that gets you off the couch must be a job you can support a family on is beyond my comprehension.

These jobs: picking, bussing, washing dishes, flipping burgers, are GOOD JOBS for high school and college kids and those who have no other ambitions. They're also a temporary possibility for those that don't have any other options, but need a stepping stone to something better.

Somehow, somewhere our culture has learned disdain for low-paying, manual work. Especially, here in L.A. where I now live, it is practically unthinkable to see a white kid mowing a lawn for extra cash. Now, all you see is Mexican "mow and blow" commando units. Remarkably, these little hit-squads are not cheaper than what the local kid would likely charge.

I think white parents instill a false sense of superiority in their kids. Therefore kids today will not seek out or accept these types of jobs. Hence, a vacuum is created and filled by the influx of an illegal work force.

This is one aspect of a systemic problem in America. I don't know that there is a practical solution to this problem, but I do believe that slowing the tide of illegal immigration will help stabilize the bottom dropping out of the lower-skill job sector.

[Deja Q]

68. In 1980, CEOs made 40x workers. Today it's over 600x...

Gee, 40x wasn't enough?

People globally think we're a rich country. No, we're not. If the janitors got paid $20/hr, as they ought to given what the job involves, we WOULD be rich and the immigrants (legal or otherwise) would be many more.

[Erika]

3. I keep hearing the economy is so great

and jobs now offered pay far less than jobs lost.

[Art_from_Ark]

44. It's like that old Will Rogers spoof of Calvin Coolidge

"Now, everybody I come in contact with is doing well. They HAVE to be doing well-- or they don't come in contact with me!"

[solinvictus]

4. I have my first real interview in several months tomorrow..

I have an insurance license, experience in operations management, and clerical experience out the wazoo. Yes, I'm ready for about any decent paying job. The point is this: illegals and their employers depress wages. Just their presence and willingness to work for less money under the table depresses wages in many blue collar professions. People do not seem willing or able to understand this.

[Ironpost]

5. Good luck on your interview

Its kinda' like we're shooting ourselves in the foot isn't it.

[solinvictus]

7. Yes, it is..

I can't understand those who fail to make the synaptic connections between illegal aliens and low blue collar wages. It is going to hurt our party if the national leadership embraces illegals. It is becoming a gut issue as jobs evaporate across the board.

[amazona]

12. it's like we're being subverted by business and corporations

I don't know who benefits from slaves and near slaves working in the United States other than business. WalMart itself was caught hiring illegals. This is a labor issue. Everybody ends up going without decent pay or health care when average wages are pulled down below minimum wage!

No doubt some of the people arguing for allowing illegal immigration to continue are sincere but I don't understand why they don't see they are taking an anti-labor position.

And I do believe that some of them are not all that well-meaning. Because it just seems strange to come to a board called "Democratic Underground" and argue for the pro-corporate, anti-labor side of an issue, no matter how well you might try to disguise your argument.

As for the claim that the people who want illegal immigration to continue are less racist-than-thou, I'm failing to see anything non-racist about encouraging large numbers of people to pay their family's life savings to organized criminals who may (or may not) smuggle them across the border instead of leaving them to die in the desert. What the Minutemen are doing is wrong, but both the government of Mexico and the government of the United States have agreed that we don't want open borders. I'm not allowed to move to Mexico and take a job even though it would be a far more affordable place for me to live if I was given that option.

If WalMart and Company are so eager to embrace illegal immigrants, I would encourage them to work within the law to change the law. Me, I'll be working within the law in my own tiny way to raise the minimum wage, not to lower it.

There are people in the United States going hungry. There was a little boy in Texas killed because his mother couldn't afford health care while all eyes watched a machine feed a brain-dead woman for 15 years. We don't have enough to take care of our own. People who are desperate and afraid are not going to embrace their competitors.

Large companies don't embrace their competitors; why should scared individuals not knowing where to turn do so?

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[htuttle]

6. It's not the illegal immigrants that are the problem, it's the employers

If an employer is paying somebody substandard pay under the table, does it matter to the job economy whether that person is a citizen or not?

Do you think that citizens don't work under the table for substandard pay, too? Most of the drywallers and roofers I've ever met were paid in cash on the sly, for example. There is a huge cash/under the table economy in this country.

Whether they are exploiting a citizen or an illegal immigrant, it's the employer's illegal activity that is depressing the job market.

[PeaceProgProsp]

10. You are right and solinvictus is wrong about this.

In Africa, development economists say that one of the key elements of development is a mobile labor force. People crossing borders, going to places where labor is valued, working to help develop the economy, and then moving on if there is a better labor market somewhere else is GOOD for economies.

We even accept that fact within the US. Millions of people moved to California in the last 50 years. California's economy has benefitted. Now some people are leaving for Nevada and Georgia because they can do better there. Nevada and Georgia will be the winners and California will be the loser because of that.

The economic principles are not so different when you're talking about Mexico-to-California immigration. Literally, WE ALL DO BETTER WHEN WE ALL DO BETTER. When people are working to make your neighborhood, city, state, country, continent, hemisphere and world better, and they're getting paid fairly for their contribution to society, EVERYONE is better off. Even illegal labor creates a ton of value, but we'd be even better off not by kicking them out. We'd do better if we helped them get an even bigger piece of the wealth they're creating because economic fairness creates great social wealth. If we kick them out, we'll all suffer. Their desperation -- disconnecting them from a marketplace that needs them -- doesn't make anyone better off. They know this in Africa. Why don't people know that in America?

[amazona]

13. oh and it works SO WELL in Africa

When was the last time you were actually there? They are desperately poor there. In some areas, I couldn't help but think I could take the people, blind-fold them, drop them off in Tijuana, and tell them it was Manhattan -- and they'd think they'd died and gone to heaven.

I now know why the term "Fourth World" was invented.

Africa is so poor that The Nation reported that plants in Mexico are closing their doors and going to Africa in search of cheap (basically slave) labor.

The conservation movement is a breeding ground of communists
and other subversives. We intend to clean them out,
even if it means rounding up every birdwatcher in the country.
--John Mitchell, US Attorney General 1969-72

[PeaceProgProsp]

34. A mobile labor force is good for economic development.

They got a lot going against them -- specifically, the legacy of colonialism. However, I've read that they attribute the economic they do have partly to mobile labor forces.

By the way, the fastest growing economy in the world over the last couple years has been Botswana.

Botswana is in Africa.

By the way.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

52. It's not hard to grow fast if you're starting from near zero

If an extremely low GDP doubles, that's a 100% growth rate. In fact, fast growth is a sign of an economy starting from a low base, because once a country reaches a certain level of affluence, it simply can't grow by a large percentage because the existing base is so large.

Besides, Botswana has more than a mobile labor force. It also has a democratic government, good education by regional standards, and no inter-ethnic conflict.

[htuttle]

15. It's because Americans have been taught to believe...

...that Business is never, ever wrong.

That Business (Americans capitalize it, btw) is compelled to do whatever it can to make as much money as it can. As though it were a force of nature that cannot be meddled with. As though being a business that sacrifices profit for the sake of it's community is being a bad business.

Ergo, whatever it is -- exploitive employer behavior, pollution, dangerous products -- it's always something else's fault. Exploitive employers are excused, pollution is ignored, and the victims of dangerous products are blamed for their mishaps.

The new Horatio Algier story is 'doing whatever you can get away with to get ahead and get rich'. THAT is what Americans are taught to respect nowdays. Gordon Gecko won after all.

[AlCzervik]

16. damn right, the minutemen should be at wal mart HQ and picketing

at home builders and corporate farms that do the employing.

[Tansy_Gold]

18. You're not competing against illegals

Please, stop blaming illegal immigrants, or legal ones for that matter, for driving wages down in non-menial jobs.

One of the reasons wages in lower-tier white collar jobs are lower than they used to be is because there are more people competing for those jobs. Eight or ten years ago, people with management experience weren't trying to get clerical jobs. In that sense, those of you who are OVER qualified and seeking the kind of job that I used to do have lowered MY wages.

In 1987, I was delighted to get a secretarial job paying $7/hour. I think minimum wage at that time was $4.75, and between us my husband and I were able to buy a house, a new car, and give our kids a few luxuries.

That was 18 years ago. This coming Thursday I will start a non-secretarial job, one for which I am enormously over-qualified, and it pays $7/hour. No benefits. No guarantee of anything over 20 hours a week. Menial labor, the kind that can be taught to someone who has never taken algebra or read Thomas Hardy or written a novel.

What's happened is that as manufacturing operations were shipped out of the country, so were the middle management and clerical support jobs. The few support jobs that were left were competed for by secretaries, accounting clerks, payroll clerks, etc., but also by the laid-off middle managers. If you were an employer, wouldn't you rather hire someone with extra training, extra knowledge, extra experience, and a couple of degrees, but pay them the same as you'd pay someone with an AAS in secretarial science?

Four years ago, the state Arizona was crying for teachers. Anyone with any kind of BA or BS could get a job teaching. My son's best friend had a degree in biology and was eagerly grabbed to teach. he knew nothing about teaching, and hated it, and knew that he had done a lousy job, but what the hell.

Today, there are so many degreed people out there without jobs that there's almost a glut of available people to teach. They've got mortgages and car payments and kids in college, so they're willing to take $35K instead of the $150K they were getting as a systems analyst for a company that moved its operations to Singapore.

It's not the immigrants that are pushing wages down, it's the boooooosh economy. But I know it's a lot easier to blame those poor brown people from Mexico than it is to look around at the desperate out of work execs and ITs and blame them for driving middle class wages down.

The thing is, it's not the out of work ITs fault OR the immigrants. It's the economy, stupid. And it's an economy based on the unending appetite of the American consumer for more and cheaper stuff.

You want your houses built by union electricians and plumbers and carpenters and roofers? Expect to pay an extra $30,000 for it. You want your vegetables picked by "real Americans" making a living wage? Plan to pay $4 for a head of lettuce and $8 for that watermelon and about $3 a bunch for green onions.

My husband grew up on a small family farm in Indiana. We were talking at lunch today about the plight of farm workers. He laughed when I told him there were people on DU who said they'd work farm labor jobs "if they paid a living wage." He said, "Farm labor NEVER paid a living wage. We used to have one or two hired men on the farm who got a room to sleep in, their meals with the family, and a little bit of spending money. They were single guys who didn't have any education, couldn't handle factory work, liked to be out of doors. Hell, when I was in school, I used to work for the neighbor farmers, and I was lucky to get 50 cents an hour!" And all this was in the 60s, not so very long ago.

In the spring and summer of 1966, I worked as a cashier in a discount store in Palatine, Illinois. I was a senior in high school and was planning to major in Spanish at the University of Illinois that fall. Because I was the only employee in the store who spoke ANY Spanish at all, I gained a reputation with the migrant worker families. They would ask for me by name, and come through my register if they had questions. I remember explaining that size labels in clothes weren't the same as price tags. I helped them write out checks, helped them sign their paychecks. These were the people even 40 years ago who were doing farm labor. These jobs didn't disappear in the past 5 or 10 years; they disappeared half a century ago, when the California and Texas growers imported people from Mexico with promises up the wazoo, and then shipped them back when the season was over, often without pay.

As long ago as 1960, the plight of migrant farm workers was a generally ignored issue. Edward R. Murrow's documentary "Harvest of Shame" (http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/050301/dctu034_1.html for a review and summary) showed Americans the people behind the Thanksgiving bounty.

We all want high wages for ourselves, and low prices for ourselves, but the dilemma is that in order to have low prices, someone has to earn low wages. While we rightfully lament the obscene disparity between CEO's pay and the wages of the ordinary worker, we should also reflect on the fact that what a modest American working class family has is just as far above what a third-world worker can expect to make. The indoor plumbing, air conditioning, refridgerator, microwave, cable tv, computers, video games, washer and dryer, dishwasher, each kid has her/his own room, etc., etc., etc., puts us at the level of a Ken Lay or Bernie Ebbers when compared to the young girl working 18 hours a day in a Nike factory in an export zone in Manila.

Our lives are easier because theirs are harder. We take advantage of them far more than they ever take advantage of us or of our system. The problem is that we don't want to recognize that we, too, are victims of the same system. And when we have to face it, it's so much easier to blame those who can't fight back, those who are beneath us on the economic ladder, those whom we would like to push down even further.

Oppression always comes from above, never from below.


Tansy Gold

[PeaceProgProsp]

40. Blame the demise of the union long before blaming immigrants.

[CitySky]

63. thanks for a thoughtful post

This especially:

"We all want high wages for ourselves, and low prices for ourselves, but the dilemma is that in order to have low prices, someone has to earn low wages. While we rightfully lament the obscene disparity between CEO's pay and the wages of the ordinary worker, we should also reflect on the fact that what a modest American working class family has is just as far above what a third-world worker can expect to make. The indoor plumbing, air conditioning, refridgerator, microwave, cable tv, computers, video games, washer and dryer, dishwasher, each kid has her/his own room, etc., etc., etc., puts us at the level of a Ken Lay or Bernie Ebbers when compared to the young girl working 18 hours a day in a Nike factory in an export zone in Manila."

Makes me think about my choices.

[Power Trowell]

41. Good luck on your interview

After you leave the place you interview at - get in your car, sit in it, and look back at the building. Visualize yourself walking through the front door going to your new job. While you wait the 2 weeks while they make up thier minds, visualize driving to the place, parking your car, going in the front door and working there.

Mike

[Ironpost]

50. How did your interview go, just wondering

[Lydia Leftcoast]

51. And there was a time when Yale's low pay rates for clerical workers

(because it was "such a privilege to work for Yale") depressed clerical wages in the entire New Haven area. As the largest employer in town, Yale set the standards, and no one else felt the need to exceed them.

If an employer can get an illegal immigrant for $3 an hour off the books, have him sleep in the garage, and threaten him with deportation if he complains, why should he pay a living wage to a legal resident?

[Ironpost]

53. That is my point exactly

It is definitely the employers at fault no doubt.

[fob]

55. "People do not seem willing or able to understand this."

The point is this: illegals and their employers depress wages. Just their presence and willingness to work for less money under the
table depresses wages in many blue collar professions.

So you've been able to determine EXACTLY the time/place of the cause and effect? Also that the cause is illegals being present and the effect is employers MUST HIRE THEM AT DEPRESSED WAGES?

Can you detail your proof for us? I see you started your point with pretty equal assigning of blame but wrapped it up with a more definitive statement. It's the definitive statement I'd like to see clarified. And for your reference I am willing and able to understand that given a labor base that will accept a significantly lower wage that employers will then push to pay lower wages.

What I don't understand is how you were able to eliminate the push to pay lower wages as the cause and the effect was a labor force showing up to take the jobs? The kicker is for some (most?) of that labor force the lower wages they accept here is a HIGHER wage than they get in their own Country.

Thanks,


fob

[PeaceProgProsp]

8. First: I don't understand your argument.

Second: When wasn't there an onslaught of immigrants?

The history of America reduced to a sentence is, almost literally, "An onslaught of immigrants."

America has always exploited easy-to-exploit labor, whether, women, children, immigrant or slave. And America has always done better as a nation when labor was paid fairly for their labor, and we've always seen a destructive concentration of wealth and power when labor hasn't been paid a fair price for its valuable work.

I do agree that a lot of immigrants are doing jobs no America would do, but I think that's because of the price they're paid. I also think there's enough wealth in America to pay a fair price for those jobs (and I think there's enough ingenuity in America to figure out a way to reward people for jobs that are impossible to pay reasonable wages to do (like, government-subsidized tuition credits at state colleges in exchange for menial work, or a serious attempt to make it possible for people to work part time at bad jobs without having to see their social security reduced dramatically). And if we did those things, you might see some American citizens working side-by-side with happy, healthy and wealthy recent immigrants at jobs they might not be willing to take today.

[Strelnikov_]

69. Actually, From The 20's To The 70's Immigration Was Down

Basically a slow climb from minimal levels following the 1st Great Depression.



And the middle class was growing from WW II into the 70's, and has been under stress from the early 80's on.

[EVDebs]

9. Most new jobs go to immigrants and illegals pay into SS

Two articles that deserve wider media circulation :

NATION’S IMMIGRANTS ACCOUNT FOR BULK OF LABOR FORCE GROWTH SINCE 2000 WHILE NATIVE-BORN WORKERS EXPERIENCE HEAVY DECLINES
http://www.nupr.neu.edu/01-04/immigration_jan.html


Illegal immigrants aid Social Security
Workers' payroll taxes yearly bring up to $7 billion
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/218791_immig05.html

Globalization's "Race to the Bottom" is behind all of this grief. No one is better off except the CEOs and Wall Streeters. Main Streeters both here and abroad end up exploited; the lost US consumption is never 'made up for' in areas where the outsourced jobs end up...

[Ironpost]

11. Who holds out taxes on illegals, think about it.

[EVDebs]

61. Exporting America Why Corporate Greed Is Shipping American Jobs Overseas

US multinationals who export jobs and capital and taxable revenues overseas, with the help of a pliant Congress, in the furtherance of GREED, make no mistake about it, IS BEHIND THIS.

[B Calm]

14. They're right., we don't want work as their cheap labor!

Now if they forced to make these bastards pay a decent wage they would be surprised how many American citizens would stand in line to work for them.

[Cleita]

17. African Americans did it then first as slaves then as paid employees..

When I worked as a waitress in the late fifties, while I went to school, I had an AA busboy. All the kitchen help were AA and Mexican American. All the hotel staff were African American and Mexican American. All the rich people's maids and nannys were AA. There was a guest worker program or the bracero program that brought Mexican nationals to work in the fields seasonally and legally.

This country does need a working class. The big difference is that now they want to get paid for it, like the plumbers, UPS guys and other better paid workers so the AA's and other underclasses of legal immigrants aspire to do those jobs. The illegals fill those gaps left, but does anyone blame them for trying to get better paying jobs too?

[Ironpost]

19. I don't blame the immigrants, I blame the system

that allows this to continue. Immigration is the soul of our country but we have legal ways to do that. My original statement is, were there jobs going undone, I think not.

[Cleita]

22. And I think I told you why. When the underclasses were

able to move up in society during the civil rights movements of the sixties, it left a gap in the labor market. We need to bring back organized labor with a vengeance and close all the holes in the laws that Reagan and previous conservatives did starting in the fifties to weaken the unions. A start would be no more open shops.

And, our government needs to start issuing carrots and sticks to Mexico to start cleaning up their own house. By this I don't mean throwing all the poor Indios in jail who cross the border but making genuine reforms in their workplaces and labor situation. Mexico has a decent economy, the Mexicans just need to stop exploiting the poor Indios.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

58. After slavery, the jobs were done by black folks and in California

by Indians for pennies on the dollar. In the 1960's we needed seasonal laborers and the US initiated the Bracero program where seasonal labor came to the US and we paid the Mexican government. To this day, THOSE laborers have not been paid.

[Tansy_Gold]

20. I once applied for a job at a large chain motel

This was in the late 1980s, here in Arizona.

I did not want a desk clerk job; I wanted a housekeeping job, you know, cleaning the rooms, making the beds, swabbing out the toilets.

I was told flat out that they did not hire white people to do that kind of job because it would insult their guests. Their guests EXPECTED to see people of color doing menial work.

[Ironpost]

21. That in itself is sad

[Cleita]

23. I would take that with a grain of salt.

They know they can't exploit white people like they do brown ones. Also, they know it would have been a problem for you to be around people who spoke nothing but Spanish around you. And, to tell the truth those gals are really hard to keep up with when it comes to the work.

You should have taken it to the Labor Board though. It is discrimination.

[PsN2Wind]

29. A huge grain

n/t

[Tansy_Gold]

35. they no more knew it would be a "problem" for me to be

around people who speak only Spanish than, um, than you do. ;-)

And you're also assuming that I couldn't keep up with them. ;-)

One of the things about working in a right-to-work state like Arizona is that employers have a plentiful supply of reasons why they don't hire someone -- and they don't even have to provide one. It's easy enough to say "She was over-qualified and we didn't think she'd be happy here or stay if she got a better offer in her field."

I wanted the job because it was close to home and the hours meshed with my husband's job and kids' schedules; the night front desk job they offered me was out of the question.

[Cleita]

38. I'm not assuming anything. I was musing on what their real and

hidden reasons might be, not the one they gave you. I don't know you or what your work load capability is. That was probably not right for me to say even though I said it sort of tongue in cheek, and oh as sort of a joke. So laugh already :rofl:.

They can make any excuse they want for not giving you the job and the one they gave you was the worst one ever. I would have reported them.
Over the years before affirmative action, these are a few of the excuses I heard and no one could make employers hire you if they didn't want to.

Okay, girl comes in for my job. I'm getting a promotion. Oh, I barely type sixty words a minute and she types eighty with ease. My manager tells her she doesn't type fast enough. I go WTF? And the manager says we can't have that. Oh, btw she's African American.

I went on a job I was well qualified for an old and now defunct computer firm. (This was back in the day's of the old mainframes.) I was struck with the number of movie starlet gorgeous women working there. I didn't get the job. My headhunter found out that they only hired beautiful women. Answering a phone was good. If you could actually do some work, it was better. (I wasn't ugly, but I wasn't a movie star.)

Fat girl didn't get hired because the job just was just filled.

Being overqualified, underqualified, whatever qualified was always a good generic one too.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

54. The other scam is telling each rejected applicant

"You were really the best qualified person for the job, but the government is making us hire a black woman."

This has the double advantage of sounding plausible to people who don't know how affirmative action actually works and infuriating the white male applicants.

[PsN2Wind]

24. As a former roofer

and machine operator for Oscar Meyer, I've done those jobs "that citizens won't do".
I would like to see a program started where those that are proponents of unfettered immigration could sponsor immigrants to come to this country. They could pay for housing, medical treatment, cost of schooling for the immigrant and dependents of the immigrant and any costs of incarceration or fines due to illegal activity. They could do this for the five years required residence until the immigrant and family was settled and paying their own way and qualified for naturalization.
This might be a bit spendy but I'm sure they wouldn't mind. In would allow them to prove they aren't only paying lip service to these people wanting to better themselves.
That would provide some relief for those of us in the border states that pay a disproportionate amount of the cost of educating, medicating and incarcerating the illegals coming into this country. Our own Democratic Governor, Janet Napolitano, in Arizona has attempted to bill the federal government for these costs but she has had no luck yet.

[Power Trowell]

30. I'd rather see us import 1 million lawyers from Mexico who

would be delighted to work for large law firms for 15K a year. They would double and triple up in substandard apartments knowing that their children would have an easier life in America. Once all the American citizen lawyers earning 80K a year had been cashiered by their law firms , we could inform them how you "just can't get Americans to do legal work anymore - we need these immigrants"

Kind of puts a different face on it when it goes white collar doesn't it?
Trouble is I thought our party stood up for blue collar workers.

[Ironpost]

32. are you a finisher also, here, we are becoming the minority

[seventythree]

47. Pretty much how it was done in 1910

with our fore mothers/fathers. You had to prove you would not be a burden on society for X number of years by having a sponsorship or cash. God help you if you arrived on that ship with pink eye -- you could be sent back. I also favor "earning" citizenship, not by having kept your nose sort of clean as some pols want it, but by volunteering in the military. Most of us can trace our family's service back through darned near every call to duty -- "earning" shouldn't be about NOT getting picked up for a serious crime.

[UdoKier]

25. Those jobs were done for living wages once upon a time.

Now they need to pack 10 in an apartment to live on those wages...

[EFerrari]

26. Could you post where you're getting the numbers for this

"onslaught"? I'd don't know them and would like to.

thanks,
B.

[Ironpost]

27. What number may I ask, thanks

[PsN2Wind]

28. the estimated numbers of illegals in the country

is now 10 or 11 million. A local Border Patrol officer told me the sector in which I live they catch 1,000 to 1,200 a day and feel that is about 10% of the total.
That IS an onslaught!!

[EFerrari]

33. Link? n/t

[Tansy_Gold]

36. I believe the article reporting on the contributions of

"illegal" immigrant workers to the social security distrust fund put the number at around 7 million. That is aggregate, of course, over however many years, and does not take into consideration non-workers or those who do not pay into social security. The total number of 10 to 11 million is probably reasonable, perhaps even low.

[EFerrari]

39. Thank you, TG! n/t

[Tansy_Gold]

43. You're welcome!

However, the figure that one border patrol segment is catching 1000 to 1200 per day and that is only 10% of the total would mean approx. 9,000 per day or somewhat over 3 million per year are entering via that segment alone. I think that is probably an exaggeration.

Of course, it will get lost in the shuffle of the various threads on immigration, but FWIW, I'm not saying that I'm in favor of unlimited and unrestricted immigration, or that I'm against it. I think that's actually a separate issue. All I'm trying to point out is that I believe it's counterproductive to blame immigrants -- legal or otherwise -- for any given individual's or group's inability to find a good-paying job. The pressure is always top down, and the greatest culprit is an economic system that demands both high wages and low prices, which are mutually exclusive.

[EFerrari]

45. Agree. Sorry, have been watching CA kick Republican butt

tonight, so I haven't been following. But tomorrow, I want to look into the numbers.

Mostly, because I truly think the Cabal is doing a two-fer: Get people upset and focused on immigrants AND insure their cronies cheap labor.

Thanks again,
B.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

59. It's less than 2% of the US population

that's chickenshit..not an onslaught.

[proud2BlibKansan]

31. And before we had computer geeks

we didn't have broken computers either.

Times change.

[Redstone]

37. Of course these jobs were going undone!

In the 1950s and 1960s, were you able to go to your local supermarket and buy fresh vegetables in the winter?

Can you do that now?

So much for your "fact."

Redstone

[Power Trowell]

42. Wow - undocumented workers only work in agriculture

News to me and to this source:

http://www.ailf.org/ipc/policy_reports_2002_value.asp

Using a mid-range estimate of 7.8 million total undocumented workers in the U.S., Frank Bean, a demographer at the University of California-Irvine, estimates that 4.5 million are from Mexico while the remaining 3.3 million are of other nationalities.

In the same study, agricultural labor economist Philip Martin estimates that from 1 to 1.4 million unauthorized workers are employed in the agricultural sector.

More than a million unauthorized workers are employed in manufacturing and a similar number in the service industry. More than 600,000 work in construction and more than 700,000 in restaurants.

I believe in the 50s and 60s American citizens were still doing constuction and manufacturing work. Perhaps you have data which contends otherwise.If not I have provided data which indicates only 1 million of 7 million illegal workers are providing us with fresh vegetables. And if the producers of these vegetables aren't willing to pay citizens living wages to pick them - then we don't deserve to eat them

[seventythree]

48. We have the labor to work the fields if we need it --

it is sitting in the prisons. Non violent offenders could work the fields if we have a shortage of cheap labor, and put together a little nest egg for when they get out -- minimum wage beats $25 a month in the laundry. I imagine fresh air and hard work would help the time go faster, too, and teach some life lessons, as well.

The teens who derogue and detassle in my area get 12 an hour for crew chiefing after a season. That's field work.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

66. LOL.. we could just arrest more white guys

btw...prisoners are already working below minimum wage

[seventythree]

70. so give them minimum wage to work in the fields -- it would be a windfall

they could send money to their families, pay their restitution, have something to get a place with, and a vehicle when they get out. Unlike years ago when unions complained about road crews, we don't have unionized illegal labor here -- everyone wins by utilizing what is just sitting in prison -- the non-violent offenders, only, of course, which is a majority.
Since I said they get $25 a month working in the laundry, I guess I know what prison scale is.

[ultraist]

46. For those who are scapegoating the undocumentated workers

PLEASE research OUTSOURCING and other factors for our job shortage.

[seventythree]

49. yes, outsourcing is a very big factor, in job shortage

Although I don't see it as figuring in as heavily in depression of wages on the low end -- the job just disappears all together! Importing foreign, legal, labor with those different categories of Visa's, like H1B, however, does depress wages at the higher end, the same way illegals depress it at the lower end. We have good job shortages, AND depression of wages.

[Disturbed]

62. Capitalism

Outsourcing, Insourcing, re-location of Mfg. all favor the Corps. The Bush Junta is a Corporatist (Fscist) Regime. The point is to force all Amerikans, not in the top 10% wealth tier, to be The Working Poor and abolish all Social Programs, Public Education, Welfare, Medicare and Social Security. Bring Amerika back to the 1800's economic model.

[datasuspect]

64. thank you for saying this

[seventythree]

71. I don't disagree with your statement regarding

capitalism favoring corporations, but I don't think it is some vast right wing conspiracy to just do in the under classes. If it were, their asses, literally, would be on the line as the masses revolt against the owners. Ford, as despicable as that man was helping the Nazi's, knew that for him to be rich, his workers needed to be able to afford his product. What has happened, imo, is the result of size and a mindset, brought on by numerous things, which covets, beyond all else, the bottom line -- a monster which has grown all by itself -- like the bureaucracy. I'm not sure how you roll the clock back to a time when coporate share holders were part of a democratic institution.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

56. ROFLMAO..YES...jobs were not being done

We've been importing seasonal labor for decades.. we did it under the Bracero program in the 60's and those poor people STILL haven't been paid by the Mexican government.

Perhaps a better question for you is this. How much are you willing to pay for an onion..an orange...an apple..or a strawberry?

How much do you think you'd pay if white people picked them?

[datasuspect]

57. braceros actually go back to the 1940s

my father's family were migrant workers.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

60. you are correct

thanks...

[Strelnikov_]

67. Like These Meatpacking Jobs We No Longer Want To Do

Meatpacking jobs (in the midwest) paid a middle class wage ($20/hr) in the 70's. These jobs provided good health care and retirement benefits because they were unionized. As was related by a worker from this era, the social contract was that it was hard, dangerous work that left most workers crippled when they retired, and the compensation reflected this.

Over the 70's and 80's non-union plants were opened, and the unionized plants closed or the unions busted. As compensation was much lower at the non-union plants, U.S. citizens abandoned the industry, and the labor void was filled with immigrant's. Since the supply of this labor is virtually unlimited, compensation and workplace safety has plummeted.

The 70's era worker, in the interview I heard, indicated that there would be no problem attracting U.S. citizens to the industry if compensation and workplace conditions were similar to the 70's.

Here is an excerpt from a study that describes the change in the meatpacking industry in Storm Lake, Iowa:

Meatpacking And The Migration Of Refugee And Immigrant Labor To Storm Lake, Iowa
http://migration.ucdavis.edu/cf/comments.php?id=154_0_2_0

The Hygrade workforce was primarily male and of European descent. Only in its last few years of operation, in the late l970s to early 1980s, did a few women work on the plant floor. The plant’s workforce was from Storm Lake and surrounding communities. Prior to the mid-1980s, Storm Lake was almost exclusively Anglo, and this homogeneity was reflected in Hygrade’s workforce. Many of Hygrade’s workers put in thirty years or more at the plant, reflecting a low turnover. For many, their jobs supported a comfortable, middle-class lifestyle. Average annual incomes were about $30,000, but some senior workers earned up to $40,000 or more in Hygrade’s last year of operation.

In October 1981, Hygrade closed its plant and Storm Lake lost five hundred jobs. Community leaders immediately set about attracting a new buyer for the plant.

In April 1982 IBP announced its purchase of the plant for $2.5 million. After extensive renovation, this became the company's first pork-packing facility (IBP previously had processed only beef.) IBP’s move into pork processing signaled a major transformation of the industry.

When IBP opened its doors in September 1982, its workforce did not resemble the old Hygrade crew. Hundreds of former Hygrade workers applied, but fewer than thirty were hired. IBP would look beyond the Storm Lake community for its laborers. Beginning wages were only $6 an hour, and health benefits become available only after six months on the job. (Today, starting wages are $7 an hour.) The new plant had higher productivity expectations than the old plant. Injury rates climbed, and high employee turnover increased the strain on local labor supplies.


It appears to me that (uncontrolled) immigrant labor fills a void that it perpetuates, low wages that make the jobs undesirable due to an oversupply of labor, the classic supply/demand relationship. All the current immigration policy of this country does is create a black market for labor, exploiting those who are here illegally, and driving down the wages and working conditions so for legal residents and immigrants the job is a step backward.

Of course, from the lofty perch of a tenured teaching position or defined benefit/trust fund annuity, the impact of the labor black market on the middle and lower class working people of this country seems to be, well, no problem at all.

What we need is a guest worker program to stop the exploitation of immigrants and end the flooding of the labor market due to uncontrolled immigration. This will address illegal immigration by dealing with demand (employers).

Some thoughts on immigration policy from John Sayles which sums up my feelings on this issue.

John Sayles
From:A People's Democratic Platform
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040802&c=5&s=for...

The Democratic platform should call for an end to the hypocrisy of our immigration policy. Our current policy, an enormously expensive cat-and-mouse game, most notably on our southern border, calls on the INS to enforce immigration laws that are openly expected to be ignored by countless US industries and private employers. Some sort of regulated guest-worker program is needed.

Once it is in place, if immigrants continue to enter the country illegally and can't find work, word will filter back and the numbers will decrease dramatically. While in our country, however, those guest workers need to be protected from exploitation--to be assured they will be paid for their work, that their working conditions will meet state and federal safety standards and that they will receive no less than the federally mandated minimum wage (which needs to be raised).

Employers would be required to withhold some percentage (perhaps the equivalent of federal taxes and Social Security) from wages to help defray the costs of the program. Penalties for hiring foreign workers outside of the program would be high enough (and sufficiently enforced) to end the black market in labor that is thriving now.

Protecting all workers in this country is an important first step toward the amendment or abolition of NAFTA and the protection of workers throughout the world.