Greg Saunders: George Bush's Contempt for American Workers Greg Saunders
Wed Mar 29, 6:36 PM ET



For all of you conservatives who love to praise the "free market", let me call bull@!#$ on this enduring lie that the President frequently cites to sell his immigration plan. From a speech he gave last November :


As we enforce our immigration laws, comprehensive immigration reform also requires us to improve those laws by creating a new temporary worker program. This program would create a legal way to match willing foreign workers with willing American employers to fill jobs that Americans will not do. Workers would be able to register for legal status for a fixed period of time, and then be required to go home. This program would help meet the demands of a growing economy, and it would allow honest workers to provide for their families while respecting the law.

The "jobs Americans won't do" lie has also been advanced in the pages of the Washington Post by a spokesman for the Labor Department and a "panicking" farmer (via Kevin Drum)

"There are just some jobs people don't want to do," Nassif said. "It's the most developed nation in the world using a foreign workforce, and people need to recognize that. We need to make them legal."

Jack Vessey said he listed openings for 300 laborers at the state office of employment last week to prepare the lettuce fields for harvest. "We got one person," he said. "He showed up and said, 'I'm not going to do that.'"

The key to unraveling this talking point is that the anonymous laborer quoted above likely ended his gripe with "unless you pay me more". The President wants you to think this is because American workers are shiftless elitists, but it's the employers and their shills who are the @!#$s here.

What people like the George W. Bush don't understand is that capitalism is not a one-way street. When the demand for workers is high and the supply of laborers is low, the rational solution would be for employers to raise wages, increase benefits, or both to ensure that supply catches up to demand. But that would mean actually spending more money, and we can't have that.

Instead, employers have found a way to get around their obligations by employing "undocumented" workers (and thus creating a demand for illegal labor). Why are these men and women willing to do the same job that Americans are unwilling to do for less money? Well, they're here illegally, for one. They probably don't speak English well and have little familiarity with existing labor laws. They're doing a job that's unskilled while under the constant threat of deportation. Sounds like the new face of indentured servitude to me, but the President and his allies are trying to figure out ways to make this exploitation acceptable.

Here's the key to all of these proposals : These illegal workers aren't being offered citizenship, but membership in a "guest worker program". Bush and co. don't give a damn about the working class in this country (immigrant or native), they just want to make sure that the crooks aren't penalized for breaking our labor laws. The solutions bandied about would create a pseudo-citizenship which will protect employers but do little to lift immigrant workers from the bottom rung on the economic ladder. When residence is closely tied to employment, the threat of deportation doesn't go away, it just gets hidden a little better.

Which makes this whole debate even more galling. Immigrants are being exploited, American workers are getting screwed, and the whole debate is happenening as if these two groups of victims are on opposite sides. If you want to stop illegal immigration, you don't need to build a fence. The supply of illegal labor will go away once the demand for it ceases. We don't need new plans, we need to rigorously enforce the laws already on the books. If that means that employers are going to have to pay more to the people doing the jobs that "Americans won't do" and pass those costs on to the consumer, then it's hardly our place to question the wisdom of the invisible hand, right?

Also, it should be stressed again that George Bush and his allies should be ashamed of themselves for slandering us with their anti-worker rhetoric. Aren't you paying attention, America? The President of the United States just called you a wimpy snob. He thinks you're too lazy to do an honest day's work and too effete to get your hands dirty. Doesn't that piss you off? It should.

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where does everyone stand?


The biggest hole, is the illusion of invulnerability.

:::Creative Draft Image Manipulation Forum:::

Seeing that you're from Sacramento, I'm a little perplexed as to why it is a myth that American's just don't want to do certain jobs.

Here in Fresno County, California, the employement rate is 10%, meaning 42,000 people are without work who are looking for work.

Source:
http://www.fresnoedc.com/demographics.htm

Now, unskilled labor will only make so much, no matter which industry, no matter how brutal. Here in Fresno, unskilled labor makes 10-14 dollars an hour, depending on the job. Farm Laborers make an average of 12, which is on average 4 dollars more per hour than they would make at Wal Mart.

All that said, bottom line is that Americans don't want to do back breaking work. When I was a teen, my mother sent me down to the Imperial Valley (that's Palm Springs, in the desert) to work in the fields picking carrots and what not, in 100-120 degree weather, for 3 months, 10 hours a day. It was meant to give me some appreciation, and to make sure I never strayed from education. I had NEVER been so happy to have the school year start!

It's real easy to sit there in your climate controlled office in a California spring to think that Americans would work in a field for $15 an hour. They won't. It's been proven over and over again.

It's the same reason real cowboys are a dying breed.


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^ totally agree.

its american lazyness.

the same reason why americans do not want to work out in the fields is the same reason why obesity has been skyrocketing.


i do know there are ALOT of americans who WILL do that back breaking work. so dont get me wrong. but there is a WHOLE lot more that would rather NOT have a job then work in a field.



The biggest hole, is the illusion of invulnerability.

:::Creative Draft Image Manipulation Forum:::

Oh and it just dawned on me... if you look at the problem even deeper...

Many farms are barely making ends meat. Most farms are started to feel heat from imported agricultural product. As it is we subsidize farmers like crazy, imagine if the farmers suddenly had to start paying Americans to pick the crops at 20-25 dollars an hour. They'd either be buried by foreign competiton or we'd subsidize them even more.

So if the immigrants are going to end up picking the crops that we eat either here or there, let them pick it here. In the end more people overall get better conditions.


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Its funny how our fathers and grandfathers busted their asses to get us where we are today....and we can't even go out and get a field ready. How about we put the people on welfare that aren't working, or deadbeat dads that don't pay child support out there and make them do it. Its a win win. Instead of wasting time with foreigners.

Basically you pay immegrant workers to harvest or you import the crop. One or the other. Import labour or import product. Either way the job is going to the lowest bidder regardless of what side of the border they are on.

Look at the recent influx of Mexican grown tomatoes as a prime example.

PAX

Quote:

Many farms are barely making ends meat. Most farms are started to feel heat from imported agricultural product

I dont know what its like over there, but in rural missouri. Every farmer is doing VERY well.

Its not just Bush but our own love of money thats doing it. AGuSTiN hit the nail on the head they're willing to work cheep and we're willing to give them the illegal jobs. Of the jobs dried up we wouldn't have to worry about building fences as they wouldn't have a reason to come here. Nope blame our own greed for this one.

Hey who do you think works Bush's ranch? $10.00 says none can speek English.






Semper Fi SAINT. May you rest in peace.

If no one can speak English, Bush would get along just dandy... He speaks better Spanish than English.

If you want to learn more about this subject: Schlosser - Reefer Madness : Sex, Drugs, and Cheap Labor in the American Black Market

Excellent read might I add.

The example used in the book is Strawberries grown in California... Strawberries don't grow well hydroponically or aeroponically, and require excessive amounts of bending over to inspect and pick the berries. It's a job that few if any Americans want to undertake, and because illegal labour is so cheap, there aren't any farms willing to take time to develop a more automated way to grow the fruit.

It also discusses the fallacy of migrant worker registration programs.



Transeat In Exemplum: Let this stand as the example.

^^ I'd like to read that book.

Being in the area in California where strawberries are grown, I'd be curious right off the bat as to how accurate this book is. Strawberries are typically grown on land in transition... farmland that is waiting to be developed on in the next 1-5 years. I forget to why this is, but it is.

Usually the land owner sublets the acreage to a group of hmong families who run it all themselves. So the the thing that strikes me right away is that this is one crop that IS picked by Americans. Hmong-Americans. Who are not native..but are still American.

The part that does fit is that there aren't better ways to pick the strawberries. Poor hmong families do not have the resource or education to R&D some machines.




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Quote:

but there is a WHOLE lot more that would rather NOT have a job then work in a field.

And thats why welfare should be harder to get. Get them lazy motherfouckers who choose not to work to work in a field or other job they supposedly don't want to do. The reason why Americans are so @!#$ lazy is because the goverment makes it so easy for them to be.

spikej wrote:

Quote:

but there is a WHOLE lot more that would rather NOT have a job then work in a field.

And thats why welfare should be harder to get. Get them lazy motherfouckers who choose not to work to work in a field or other job they supposedly don't want to do. The reason why Americans are so @!#$ lazy is because the goverment makes it so easy for them to be.

If it were left up to me, I'd start with welfare receipients with no kids. I'd make it so hard to get welfare it'd be ridiculous.

If there were jobs paying more than 10 an hour in an area that didn't need skilled workers, you couldn't get welfare until all those jobs were filled.


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Lets make a petition to get these deadbeats off the streets. Oh wait....most of us are too lazy too.

another failure by the Bush admin to do whats right for the AMERICAN ppl

to hell with jobs for americans

to hell with disaster relief for americans

to hell with our own security being run by americans

Bush should be the president of a foreign country, since thats the only group of ppl he seems to care about



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