Oklahoma law targeting illegal workers had some unforeseen results

[NNN0LHI]

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-immigrant_bdfeb10,0,6296102.story

Where have the immigrants gone?

Oklahoma law targeting illegal workers had some unforeseen results

By Howard Witt | Tribune correspondent
10:08 AM CST, February 10, 2008

TULSA - The splintered trees, downed branches and piles of wood still littering nearly every neighborhood of this sprawling city two months after a devastating ice storm stand as a testament to something more than the ferocity of nature.

The debris is also a sign of the effectiveness ofOklahoma's new law intended to drive illegal immigrants out of the state -- the strictest such statute in the nation.

The branches are still here, many of the law's critics say, because the undocumented workers who would have cleaned them up are not.

"You really have to work hard at it to destroy our state's economy, but we found a way," said state Sen. Harry Coates, the only Republican in the state Legislature to vote against the immigration law. "We ran off the workforce."

[sam sarrha]

1. guess they will have to start paying a liveable wage..

[Egalitariat]

28. It will be interesting to see how much that costs each of us

I'm all for it, but I don't think anybody knows how much it will cost people like you and me.

[sam sarrha]

33. probably 3 cents a pound for veggies, around 10 cents for a Tee shirt, it isn't much per item, but

millions in extra profit for manufactures who make a lot.

got to realize that outsourcing is done in businesses that are very profitable and stable, they can declare all the wages saved as annual profit.. raising the stock price then the insiders sell their stock at peak and the stock tanks.

wall mart was making historic profits when they told their suppliers that if they didn't outsource they would be dropped, this was done to raise profits only pennies per item...

[pitohui]

34. yeah because after all i can only pick up tree limbs by stepping on somebody's face

sorry, if the only way i can get a job done is by having a slave, maybe it's better that the job remain undone

pay people fairly and they'll pick up the branches

you cannot safely operate a truck with proper insurance and license and have a crew and expect to pay $10, lincoln freed the slaves, ya know?

[Egalitariat]

36. Did they still have slaves in Oklahoma or are you just a little

melodramatic?

[SoCalDem]

53. Put up signs that say $10 an hour for storm clean up

They WILL have lost of strong young people showing up to help out..

[sam sarrha]

2. guess they will have to start paying a liveable wage, to keep the kids down on the farm..

[NNN0LHI]

4. Have them on the payroll to clean up after an ice storm that MIGHT come every fey years?

[madokie]

6. are you advocating opening the borders wider

exactly whats the purpose of this op

[NNN0LHI]

7. Immigrants don't frighten me

They come here because we stole their land and divert their water.

The borders our government created at the point of a gun are bullshit.

Cant leave these people out in a desert to fend for themselves. Our government created the problem. Lets deal with it rationally and fairly.

Don

[Coyote_Bandit]

8. If I may ask

how do you intend to redress the historical injuries done to Native Americans? Slaves?

Why don't fellow citizens who have suffered at the hands of our government take precedence over non-citizens?

And do you intend to compensate the innocent victims of our penchant for military action?

[NNN0LHI]

20. I consider any human being who is here to be as much of a citizen as the next person

I don't look at someone and wonder if they are here legally or not. We are all members of the human race. That is good enough for me.

Don

[Coyote_Bandit]

26. So

you have no problem with illegal undocumented workers because you think they come because we stole their land and diverted their water.

But you apparently don't think that reparations are appropriate for Native Americans or slaves or innocent victims of military aggression.

Perhaps you could explain why you think the injury to some groups warrant preferences while other arguably more severe injuries are not worthy of reparations.



Yeah, we're all members of the human race. But we are not all members of the same communities or countries. Decency requires that we owe other people certain minimum obligations. However the choice to welcome all across borders without restriction is a matter of policy. Reasources are limited and throughout history communities have acted to protect the resources available to them.

[pitohui]

35. GOP supports illegal workers because they'd rather never see a black man get a dollar

yes, yes, i've heard them say that all people are equal, and yet they only believe this when paying their mexican groundskeeper less than minimum wage and they don't believe it when they discover that a black man is coaching their daughter at the public school

the rich want illegals because they want wages depressed and they think we should all work for nothing

and people who figure THEY'LL never have a blue collar job threatened by the depressed wages, they are happy to chime in and take the support of the rich and the GOP

believe you me, pay me and my hubby enough and we'd drive out and clean up the tree branches tomorrow, we did plenty of it after katrina and several other storms just a TAD bigger than the oklahmona ice storms

all these stories about "oh woe we don't have our slaves any more" wow, just pay citizens a fair wage and get over it

i don't suppose the poster even realizes that he's parroting the GOP party line, but god knows i have to hear enough of it around here, and he's got it down to a science -- illegals "good" (because they work for nothing), actual citizens "bad" (because they are trying for some dignity and won't work for nothing)

[NNN0LHI]

37. All the Repigs I am forced to associate with would just as soon see immigrants shot on sight

They feel the same way about black men.

Who is parroting GOP party line?

Don

[madokie]

12. what is rational and fair?

maybe its I don't understand the concept or something.

May I ask what kind of work you do or used to do if you are like me and a non working member of our society. I used to be a construction worker pretty much my whole work history, 40 plus years

[NNN0LHI]

17. I would begin by stopping the diverting of 95% of the Colorado River before it reaches Mexico

Can't expect people to live somewhere there is no water because we divert it all before it gets to them. It is crazy to even expect such a thing. Got to have water to stay alive.

I am a retired auto worker. Still a dues paying member of the UAW. Local 588.

Don

[Coyote_Bandit]

19. Water rights

will become an increasingly important matter of contention. It will pit American communities and states against each other.

There currently is an ongoing dispute between Arkansas and Oklahoma over water quality that has been going on for years with not resolution in sight. Expect it to be resolved in the Supreme Court.

[madokie]

23. in other word you have been pretty much shielded from having to compete with

an illegal worker for your livelihood, well I haven't been. In these threads I have yet to read where a construction worker has advocated adding more illegals to the work pool, its always someone like yourself who don't or didn't have to compete with them. In other words what you say carries very little weight with me on this subject.
Peace and have a great day.
We drive fords too ;-)

[treestar]

40. Who else do you have the right not to compete with?

It's unrealistic. We've got to deal with reality; we have to compete with most of the planet nowadays.

And these jobs in Oklahoma would be filled by Americans by now if it were really true that the illegals were being employed at the cost of Americans.

[madokie]

55. do you know that there is jobs not being done or is it there hasn't been enough time

to pick up all the thousands of tons of debris yet. BTW what do you do for a living if I may ask.

[rockymountaindem]

45. The Colorado flows through Mexico for only a small fraction of its course

The amount of people one could expect to sustain along its banks in Mexico, even if the US didn't take a drop, would not be enough to reverse the trend of immigration into the US, which stems from many factors besides water.

[NNN0LHI]

60. Yes it is quite amazing our government allowed any part of the Colorado to be located in Mexico...

...after our government redrew the border between Mexico and America by gun point. At one time it was in a lot of what we now call America.

And Mexican people wouldn't need to subsist along its banks if it wasn't diverted before it arrived there. As hard as it is for some to believe Mexican engineers would be perfectly capable of devising ways to move the much needed water into areas where clean drinking water was needed for people there to subsist on. They wouldn't need to live along the banks to drink water directly from the river.

Don

[Coyote_Bandit]

3. Ummmmm

I live in Tulsa. THe scope of the damage from that icew storm simply cannot be used as a measure of available labor for debris removal. The ice storm referenced destroyed approximately one third of the shade coverage here. There are 200 trucks a day going out to pick up debris. Each truck carries 20 times as much as a typical dump truck. There are many dump sites around the city and its surrounding suburbs where one can view acres of tree debris stacked high - and many acres of resulting tree mulch. Removing the debris has been a slow process. My small neighborhood street is about a quarter of a mile long. It took workers a full 8 hours to pick up limbs from that small area. Homeowneres and tree trimmers have since trimmed and placed additional damaged tree limbs which remain to be picked up in a second pass through the city. Also, the city is sending crews into the neighborhoods to remove hanging tree limbs that are over the city right of way.


Edit to add: There were hispanic workers in the crew that picked up in my neighborhood. I presume they were able to document their legal right to work.

[devilgrrl]

5. I guess Americans will just have to take jobs that the they don't want to do

:popcorn:

[Alcibiades]

10. There are no jobs Americans won't do

We have done every job that there is. The goal of the bosses is to use immigrants as a class of helots, disposable people that they can exploit for low wages and no benefits, which further lowers the wages of everyone competing against them. Everyone, except, that is, the privileged professional class.

I have worked as a health care aide for mentally ill geriatric patients, an ironworker, a dishwasher, a landscape laborer, and a dozen other jobs the right wing echo chamber would alledge that Americans don't want to do. I've worked alongside native born workers and immigrants of many nationalities. The main difference is that American workers have to support their families in this economy, whereas immigrants may keep their families at home, where they can obtain the necessities of life at a much lower cost.

[devilgrrl]

15. I was just having some fun with the talking point...

that's what the righties like to throw around.... "but but but American won't do those jobs...blaa blaa blaa"

You know?

[Alcibiades]

11. There are no jobs Americans won't do

We have done every job that there is. The goal of the bosses is to use immigrants as a class of helots, disposable people that they can exploit for low wages and no benefits, which further lowers the wages of everyone competing against them. Everyone, except, that is, the privileged professional class.

I have worked as a health care aide for mentally ill geriatric patients, an ironworker, a dishwasher, a landscape laborer, and a dozen other jobs the right wing echo chamber would alledge that Americans don't want to do. I've worked alongside native born workers and immigrants of many nationalities. The main difference is that American workers have to support their families in this economy, whereas immigrants may keep their families at home, where they can obtain the necessities of life at a much lower cost.

[Coyote_Bandit]

16. I've known a lot of Americans

that did some damn nasty jobs. Fruit and berry pickers. Meat processors. Construction and roofing. All sorts of agricultural work. Manufacturing, machining and factory work. Landscaping. Maid service. New home prep. Pool maintenance.

Matter of fact in making that list I realized that I currently know Americans that are currently doing all those things. And some of them intentionally chose the work over other options and are quite happy.....

[Lydia Leftcoast]

18. If you've seen Michael Moore's film "The Big One,"

you'll remember the scene in which he confronts Phil Knight of Nike about his use of sweatshops in Indonesia.

Phil Knight says,"Americans don't want to make shoes anymore."

And Moore's response is, "No, not for a dollar an hour."

It is because of greedheads like Knight that I will not buy name-brand athletic shoes. I go to Payless and get shoes made in the same factories as the name-brand shoes, only without the huge mark-up for advertising, celebrity endorsements, and shareholders' bonuses.

A further example of Knight's stinginess is when Nike sponsored the World Masters' Games (an Olympics-type meet for older athletes). First of all, athletes had to pay $200 a person to participate. I don't know if there were exceptions for athletes from poor countries. Then the richest company in Portland, with all those $200 participation fees in its coffers, put out a call for volunteer interpreters.

Now I might have considered volunteering my services to a community event or an event held by a low-budget non-profit whose cause I believe in, but working free for Nike? No way.

[Coyote_Bandit]

22. The economics are such that

(1) you have to bring in enough income from whatever work you choose to be self-supporting and

(2) wages are driven down when there is more labor available.



Such are the principles of basic budgeting and demand and supply. Clearly they are interrelated.

[devilgrrl]

32. Yes, I remember that scene... that's why I made that comment...

I almost flew through the ceiling when Knight said that and I also remember being upset with Moore for not getting in his face about it. What a stupid thing to say! :mad:

But you know what I mean by the comment I made? I should have used the sarcasm tag. :-(

[madokie]

21. hell back in the 80's, when we had an ice storm like this one I was one of the folks

out there picking up the debris too as I was unemployed those couple weeks. Knocking down some pretty good cash while doing it I might add.

There is no such thing as jobs that americans won't do or in my 59 years I haven't found it yet if there is. I was picking strawberries and beans when I was in junior high school. shit fire I was so small as to not be able to get up into the flatbed 5 ton truck that was used to haul our asses the fifty miles each way to get to the fields. I would jump up and someone would grab me by the under arms and haul my skinny ass into the truck bed there. Yes I remember it well

I actually look back on those days with a big smile on my face too as its part of why I am who I am today.;-)
Peace Neighbor.

[LynneSin]

9. Same exact thing happened in Hazelton, PA

The Mayor did his darndest to drive out the illegal immigrants.

Now the city's economy is in the tank because of all the people who left Hazelton because of the laws.

[atreides1]

13. And now he plans to run for Congress

I saw him on Lou Dobbs last week, and old Lou was kissing and sucking like he usually does with his fellow bigots, and the good mayor mentioned a run for Congress. He said that he wants to do for the country what he did for his town.

[LynneSin]

14. We're already in a recession - and that asshole wants to make it worse

:crazy:

[madokie]

30. explanation needed, please

[AlertLurker]

24. Perhaps if you pay a fair wage to get the branches removed?

Gods know there's enough poor people in Oklahoma willing to actually do the work.

"The branches are still here, many of the law's critics say, because the undocumented workers who would have cleaned them up are not."

What a pile of horseshit.

[madokie]

25. Kind of like this huh

I've been there and I've done it as I note up post a ways

[Coyote_Bandit]

29. Ummmmm

I live in Tulsa. See my post #3 above.

The crews are actually doing a pretty good job of removing debris. What that article does not capture is the extent of the ice damage here. I've detailed some of that above. At its height there were about 270,000 customers in the Tulsa metro area without power. That included critical operations such as police, fire and hospitals. My own electricity was out for a week - and I live on a main feeder line less than a half mile from an electrical substation. I personally know folks who were without power for ten and eleven days.

Crews doing debris removal are private contractors. Some local businesses. Others from well outside the immediate area. Many of these contractors have hired local workers.

[AlertLurker]

31. Local workers are the best.

Hubby and First Born worked removing branches, cutting damaged trees, general cleanup for Hydro One in Ontario after the 1998 Ice Storm. Made enough money between the two of them to buy a HUGE New Holland Combine (used 1995)...Best investment we have ever made (to date, anyway).

[treestar]

41. Then where are the Americans?

Who would do this job? Holding out for a "fair wage?" How can they afford that?

These poor people should just go to the place and get the job - if they exist, they would do that.

The illegals were happy with the wage and did the job for it. So if they have been successfully "chased out" these jobs are now open to the poor who were born on U.S. soil.

[AlertLurker]

58. There are many good reasons for minimum wage laws.

I have worked, in one capacity or another, in the Ag sector all my life. Our family farm used to make a good living in the fall off of a small orchard we keep. I may as well cut it all down for firewood due to increased market pressure from US slave-owning corporations. I make some money off dairy and poultry, hay, corn and silage, but even with rising domestic corn prices, we will probably not break even again this year.

I hire LEGAL immigrants EVERY year (to be fair, no more than six last year, all from Guatemala/Guyana) and I STILL have problems marketing what I produce due to US factory farms using SLAVES to artificially keep prices too low for me to FAIRLY compete. I have to PAY my labour FAIRLY, although whether you call $9.00/hr CAD fair compensation for the rigorous labour involved is relatively questionable. It is LEGAL, however. I'd LOVE to be able to employ more Canadians, but I have to rely on CASS subsudies to do it and even then I can only afford students, PART-TIME. Some of the work I provide for others is only available part-time and/or seasonally, and the "season" in Canada is SHORT. Government Ag subsudies are a necessary evil at this time, but there's no guarantee of their amount (currently CASS will pay up to $3.50/hr), or even their existance (program ends in 2010), from one year to the next.

Ag subsudies wouldn't be necessary AT ALL if it weren't for these slave-owning corporate scumbags making millions off the backs of their slaves...

Many people want to call these people slaving in the USA's Ag sector "undocumented workers." Quit LYING, USA, and call a spade a spade. They're SLAVES. I talk to these people (some who have worked for us have previously worked in the USA) ALL THE TIME. They hate the US system as much as ANYBODY. They don't care for ours much, either, but they know that they will be LEGALLY compensated and if they get injured of sick, they will be at least cared for. They do not have ANY of these guarantees in the USA. Many are ripped off, year after year. Starving their families at home is the only other alternative to illegal labour for many of them. They work incredibly long hours doing physically demanding and potentially dangerous work for incredibly little reward. I PERSONALLY know two Guyanese brothers who worked illegally in the USA for TWO YEARS, picking/loading/packing fruit for $4.25 USD an hour - when they got paid. It's anecdotal, but certainly rings true to me, since I have heard many other similar stories from many other people I have hired.

They would NOT be doing this if there were ANY other alternative, PERIOD.

I can not believe it is any different in the US construction or horticulure industries. The same trends, the EXACT same patterns of slavery and exploitation exist across all service sectors, in one form or another.

If they "chase out" the slaves, it's a start, but the REAL problem still exists. They've got to GET RID OF THE SLAVE OWNERS and their mentality to make ANY significant impact. I really mean "GET RID," too. They should be hounded COMPLETELY out of business, fined, imprisoned, or perhaps just hunted down like dogs and SHOT. </hyperbole> If they manage to shut down these these criminals and their criminal SLAVE enterprises, how can there ever be as many slaves to exploit in the first place - especially if legal restrictions to lawful immigration can then be safely removed or mitigated because there is no longer any imperative or incentive?

[MercutioATC]

27. Let's bring back slavery!

It'd sure be easier to clean up all of that storm damage with 10 or 20 thousand slaves....

Maybe eliminate child labor laws...a 9-year-old can pick up sticks...


There are always times when doing things the cheap and easy way, regardless of the greater good is.....well.....cheaper and easier. If the state wants storm damage cleared, they'll just have to provide a contract that allows companies to hire workers at a decent wage. It's that simple.

There is no shortage of American citizens (or legal resident aliens) that would do the job for a decent wage.

[maui9002]

38. Lots of heat and little light on immigration labor

I've lived in AZ nearly all my life and have worked with immigrants and businesses that hire immigrants for many years. I still don't understand all the arguments against comprehensive immigration reform, especially when the success of this opposition is to maintain the status quo, which everyone claims is unacceptable, and encourage state legislatures to pass anti-immigration laws that will (i) hurt immigrant workers, (ii) damage the local economy, and (iii) result in higher prices for everyone.

1. When I was a young man, I worked lots of summer jobs, including part time jobs that did not require construction skills. I was paid minimum wage, as were the non English speaking Hispanics who worked with me (who contrary to many opinions I've seen expressed by anti-immigrant folks, were uniformly tireless, hard working individuals). Most of these positions were filled by what I presume to be undocumented workers--I'm sure if the construction company could have found other unskilled workers, whether they were affluent white teenagers like me or poor Hispanics trying to support their families, who would work just as hard as the crews I worked with, they'd have hired them.

2. I see no problem with giving unskilled workers from Mexico and other Latin American countries what they consider a decent wage, especially when it's dramatically higher than what they could earn in their home countries, so long as (i) the position is first made available to U.S. citizens; (ii) the unskilled workers have satisfied certain conditions to gain legal status (so that the market for underground labor is weakened); and (iii) certain protections are provided to the unskilled workers in exchange for their agreement to shoulder some of the costs of providing government services to them (taxes, insurance premiums, etc.)

3. Who determines what a decent wage is? In other words, if an unskilled worker wants to work for minimum wage (or even less), is it my right or duty to deny that right to the unskilled migrant worker, especially when the alternative is that he or she must return to their home country and make significantly less money and experience a lower standard of living? I am confident the overwhelming majority of these workers would prefer that they keep their jobs, and have the chance to improve their lot in life in this way rather than lose their jobs and return home.

4. In the furor over immigration, I believe some have lost sight of the impact that immigrants have on the economy; not just as laborers, but as consumers. There are an estimated 500K illegal workers in Arizona, all of whom are consumers and most of whom pay taxes--payroll taxes, sales taxes, property taxes. There is a legitimate argument that the taxes paid by this segment of our population are outweighed by the costs incurred to provide services to these individuals. But isn't the answer to ask these individuals to pay for at least some of these costs in exchange for granting them legal status--and keeping the considerable benefits that these individuals provide to our community?

[treestar]

39. If you look at the Dept. of Labor web page

You will see that #2 is actually the case. The problem is that there are quotas, and so if there is a demand greater than the quota, there is nothing to do but just not hire anyone or hire illegally.

The obvious solution is just to grant visas to anyone who could get a job. Take away the threat of deportation and the noncitizen has an ability to demand at least minimum wage, etc. It is the illegal status and threat of deportation that allows employers to pay them less than minimum. And if people are willing to work for that, while Americans "can't" there's no way to avoid it.

[madokie]

56. what a warped sense of fair play

:rofl:

[Stinky The Clown]

42. Tough shit, fuckwads .... now you have to pay higher wages to your actual citizens ......

..... or just let that wood rot.

Stupid fucking republicans. Only a dumbfuck could not have foreseen this.

[EFerrari]

43. Undocumented workers are so interwoven in our economy

it's hard to believe these boneheads who want to score points with their xenophobic base won't do more harm than good to their local economies with these laws.

[MadMaddie]

44. Another fine Republican community project is a success.

:sarcasm:

[williesgirl]

46. I'm sick of these articles. Hire legal immigrants or citizens for the work and pay

a living wage or do it yourself. I live on 6 acres of mostly oak trees on a mountain. We gets lots of high wind storms and yes, alot of trees and limbs come down all the time. I'm 62, a widow on disability and yet I manage to get my butt outside and pick up the smaller ones myself. I hire local men out of work or looking for extra income to help me with the larger ones. I pay them $10/hr which is probably not enough, but more than I can afford. I have no trouble getting folks to help.

The people I DO FEEL badly for are all those folks in other countries waiting to immigrate here legally. Plus those that did go through the process and are here looking for work as well.

[proud2BlibKansan]

47. How about fair wage legislation?

Force employers to pay all workers the same wage. That would eliminate the competition for jobs. It's currently an uneven playing field for US workers. That needs to be addressed.

Closing the border is unrealistic and expensive.

Deporting the undocumented immigrants is impossible. Oklahoma can kick them out but that doesn't solve the problem.

[NaturalHigh]

48. I live in Oklahoma...

and I picked up my own tree branches. I even managed to cut a few damaged limbs off the trees. It was good exercise and actually kind of fun. Of course, I would have done that no matter how many illegals were around to do it for me. It certainly didn't change my opinion of the new immigration law, of which I am strongly in favor.

[madokie]

59. Yep, same here, done it all by myself in about 3 days time

paid myself pretty damn good while doing it too.;-) Of the illegal worshippers here I say not many, if any, of them are construction workers, many live where there are not many illegals to begin with or they are the ones who will hire them for picking up their limbs or whatever. Whereas we here were starting to see illegals crawling out of the woodwork. I like our new law just fine, the intended results are whats happening too.

[DadOf2LittleAngels]

49. LOL how aawful we get rid of a black market cheap workforce

Now we will have to fix immigration law to allow the right number of people and pay them a livable wage..

[countryjake]

50. It'll be quite a twisted pleasure watching Rethug states & towns go default...

due to their white-supremacist policies. Couldn't happen to a better bunch.

We can only hope that once these "law & order" types are forced to become migrants, too, just in order to survive after their cities' economies totally collapse, that then they might begin to realize that workers are workers the world over, no matter where they labor, and that it is only in our best interest to stand up together to fight for all our rights. United.

[leftofthedial]

51. fucking repukes and libertarians are among the stupidest fuckwads

in the history of the earth

[Hekate]

52. The nativists who holler the loudest about "illegals" just don't get the complexity....

They really will have to learn the hard way. I understand that Colorado also passed a punitive law -- good luck to them, too. John McCain has tried to tell it like it is, and the Repubs have spit in his eye.

California's lawmakers get it. Much of our economy would suffer greatly without the Latino workforce, including the undocumented ones.

I don't have the answers -- I just know the situation is very complex and we need some rational way to deal with it.

Btw, I am pro-union, pro-worker, in favor of raising the minimum wage, and I want human rights protected. We can do it. Yes, we can.

Hekate

[Proud Liberal Dem]

54. You mean the community didn't take responsibility for itself?

How is it the responsibility of illegal immigrants to clean up messes left after natural disasters? I thought that it such cleanup is/was the responsibility of the community and the national guard. Oh, wait a minute................

[Virginia Dare]

57. The same thing appears to be happening in Virgina..

one county in the D.C. ex-urbs took it upon themselves to make it rather "unwelcome" shall we say for Latino immigrants, legal and otherwise. Almost overnight, a good part of the community has left and the real estate market is going kaboom and taking the rest of the economy with it. You reap what you sow.