Subscribe to Common Dreams News Updates
Most Popular This Week
Popular content
Today's Top News
Take Our Jobs!
Undocumented farm workers have become scapegoats for our nation's economic woes.
We are a nation that doesn't understand how food reaches our tables.
American agriculture depends on a hardworking, dedicated immigrant workforce. About three-quarters of all crop workers were born outside the country. Since the 1990s, at least half are not authorized to legally work in the U.S., according to government statistics.
In an era of high unemployment, these undocumented workers have become scapegoats for our nation's economic woes. Many people blame the high unemployment rate on foreigners, who they accuse of taking jobs away from citizens. Movements are afoot to remove them from the country.
Congress's failure to enact much needed immigration reform has created this situation.
United Farm Workers (UFW) is addressing these issues with the "Take Our Jobs" campaign. We're inviting citizens and legal residents to apply for jobs on farms across the country to help bring to homes, restaurants and workplace cafeterias (including those serving members of Congress) the food that fuels the people of this great nation.
If all undocumented farm workers are deported, as some have called for, the agricultural industry would need at least one million citizens or legal residents to replace the labor of these immigrants, according to government statistics. The fact is that large numbers of U.S. citizens have not worked on farms for decades. Despite the nation's economic turmoil, only three people accepted our invitation to work on farms in our campaign's first four weeks.
The "Take Our Jobs" campaign spotlights the immigrant labor issue and the need for Congress to enact much needed immigration reform. Without it, the domestic agricultural industry will be crippled.
United Farm Workers has proposed a bipartisan solution to this issue: The AgJOBS bill, which is also supported by employers.
The proposed law would give undocumented farm workers presently here the opportunity to earn legal status by continuing to work on farms. Senators Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Richard Lugar (R-IN) are the principal co-authors in the Senate, along with Representatives Adam Putnam (R-FL) and Howard Berman (D-CA) in the House.
Farm laborers do the difficult work most Americans are unwilling to do, as the "Take Our Jobs" campaign has shown. These workers are professional laborers with essential skills needed to cultivate our crops.
Almost everyone in the United States depends on these farms and workers for food. Failure to act on the AgJOBS bill before Congress will encourage the exportation of our food production to other countries. Agriculture will go the way of the once-vibrant textile, steel, and auto industries.
Ignoring these issues will only lead to more ill-conceived laws like the one recently passed in Arizona (SB 1070), which supports racial profiling and is driving away much-needed farm laborers.
The UFW supports farm workers regardless of their legal status or nationality. Failure to act now on the AgJOBS bill will only exacerbate the nation's current economic woes.
We encourage you to write to Congress to pass this crucial piece of legislation that will address a long-ignored problem and bolster the economic recovery.
- Posted in
74 Comments so far
Show AllAmericans who are facing homelessness ARE willing to do these jobs.
Really? Where? When you say "Americans" do you mean white Anglo-Saxons?
Are you willing to pick lettuce in 100 degree heat for 7 bucks an hour, with no overtime? Let's see it. Talk is cheap.
I say this with respect, but the strawmen in these articles and comments are nervewracking. I'd beg for people to stop, but I'm not sure it's going to do any good.
No, I won't do that for 7 bucks an hour and no overtime. I also won't do data entry, library cataloguing, or research for 7 bucks an hour and no overtime.
This isn't about the jobs per se (and I've done farm work growing up in Nebraska, as had most every kid and a lot of grownups in this state. I liked the work when my body could handle it. I knew people who were "professional" farmhands in the 70s). I worked in meatpacking in my 20s going through school as well, and those jobs are now paying about what they did 30 years ago, no benefits, no safety, and the only citizens working in them are in supervision and management positions anymore.
If anyone's job conditions and pay were like this in most sectors, no one would work them.
it's just strange that on this issue otherwise smart and decent people have Pavlovian reactions that rival anything I've seen from the lunatics in the Tea Party. I wonder why that is? I also wonder who's been benefitting from the dissension?
We are and have been making a terrible mistake going down this road. I still think we can find solutions that spread the pain and benefit to more people than being forced by corporate funded "social associations" to choose "sides" that are harming all of us, migrant workers and domestic workers alike.
The quality of these arguments needs to pick up dramatically, and I say that as someone who agrees with you specifically on probably any and every other issue. This is the major racial/class wedge issue of our day, and we need to treat it with the sobriety and care that it deserves.
drone...would you elaborate?...peace
The issues you mention here, while vitally important, have nothing to do with farming nor with immigration. There is a hierarchy of pay and status all through society. Educated people are paid more than uneducated people.
Framers don't care who does the work, and don't know and should know who is "legal" or "illegal" anymore than they should be giving employees piss tests or otherwise snooping into their lives. Farmers should not be turning away applicants because they are brown. They are doing that now, in self-defense - people can claim until the cows come home that the anti-immigration hysteria is not racist, but obviously it is brown people who are being targeted and no officials will be asking any farmer to prove that any white workers are "legal" - and local whites are now taking the jobs. Rather than people from south of the border moving up - which helped all of us - we now see whites sliding down. But, hey, at least people can stop worrying about the hordes of brown people invading. Now they can worry about keeping a roof over their heads and eating.
All farm work is hard and relatively low paying. Farmers have little or no control over where food dollars wind up, and more and more of them are winding up in the pockets of Wall Street hustlers. Let's declare THEM illegal aliens, why don't we?
Corporations would rather have the workers south of the border. They can hire them more cheaply there.
these are not mutually exclusive situations. almost every post on the center-left opposed to unrestrained migrant worker entry bashes the demand side (employers) at least as hard. A lot of right wingers are, as well, though that's not going to get reported on here, and the truth is that those guys are still a minority on their end, just as people like me are on ours.
drone... thank you for the clarification...your position is indeed nuanced...i treat cd like my favorite pub, "long thoughts" make the beer especially tasty....thanks again...cheers
Let me elaborate just a little more than I have. It's hard on message boards to really get into too much detail, and even harder when you have avenging angels whose goal is to disrupt and terminate discussions.
Yes, I am saying that pay is strongly correlated with attraction. I'm also saying the inverse. Most of the people who speak as if these are jobs that Americans won't do for a variety of reasons would themselves refuse other jobs under the same conditions. It's strange how what is essentially a right wing philosophical core--that humans are bad, inherently lazy and non-productive without a strong hand to guide them, yada yada yada--that is explicitly rejected by most leftist thought is adopted immediately when discussing American workers vis a vis migrant labor. This is, to me, a fairly well engineered campaign to lionize migrant workers--making them sort of proletarian heroes--who come in and save us from our lazy selves.
On an institutional and structural scale, my view is that migrant workers--and hence this entire issue--is a result of attempts to continue the neoliberal offshoring outsourcing project through the importation of scabs. This is done in many other sectors these days, and because most mobile jobs are already gone, that leaves what used to be called "non tradable" jobs to find a way to cut labor costs.
The pattern is clear: in technology and more "advanced" occupations, the long trend has been to exploit and expand H1 programs to replace domestic workers in jobs that can't easily be shipped out of country. Migrant workers are the response to non tradable jobs on at the low end service level. This is entirely consistent with the goals of "globalization", but because so much of the anti-migrant venom is coming from the Right, the left has adopted a reflexive posture of assuming that they need to stand in opposition to the racist opposition in order to be on the "right side" of the issue. But when you look at the organizations that began the peddling of the "heroic immigrant/migrant" frame, as well as the very corporate "diversity" frame as well, those organizations aren't noted for being pro-labor.
LaRaza, for example, one of the prime culprits in disseminating this new center-left mythology, is swimming in corporate cash from a virtual Rogues Gallery of labor repressive businesses, more than a few who are benefitting from unrestrained migrancy.
My preference in that we reject the terms of this entire debate and start over. But like many issues of the day--like abortion for example--our sides may have been too entrenched now in propaganda (just as the Right is) to be able to navigate to a more sober review of exactly what course the progressive community should take that serves both the obvious needs of the migrant communities as well as domestic workers.
I'm going to stop at this point, because I don't want to get entangled in a pissing contest with a particular poster that will probably start attaching to this discussion like a barnacle, so hopefully I've made myself clear. If not, I'm sure we'll have plenty more opportunites as the CD staff continues to ram only this one perspective down our throats.
Great posts, drone.
Socialist, are you willing to give this some more thought and dicsuss it?
Forget about picking lettuce. How many are willing to work in chicken processing plants in 100 degree heat? Or slaughter houses? Strange how this discussion focuses on the plant-based part of farming rather than the meat-based part of, and I use the term loosely, farming.
Be prepaired for higher food prices and lower real estate prices, if tougher immigation laws are inacted. Just be careful what you wish for.
At least the Great White Masters can start a bracero program to give the modern-day slaves an option and at least a minimum of human rights.
It is high time to crack down on BigAg and other firms who hire the workers, instead we persecute the victims. It is high time to abolish NAFTA, as well. NAFTA is a chief culprit causing poverty in Mexico, farmers driven off their land and left with two choices: move to "el Norte" or starve.
Anytime I hear a fat, lazy, US person say that "Mexicans" are getting a free ride, are responsible for the housing crisis, responsible for public deficits etc. I respond with: "then quit your job, and go pick grapes in the blazing sun for 12 hour days with no overtime. The callous hypocrisy will choke us.
A few maybe..is easier to hate than blame real oppressors. Why are 25 hedge fund managers allowed 1 billion each a year while the rest of us fight among ourselves?...all they do is steal money legaly and we all pay the price.
A few maybe..is easier to hate than blame real oppressors. Why are 25 hedge fund managers allowed 1 billion each a year while the rest of us fight among ourselves?...all they do is steal money legaly and we all pay the price.
"Take Our Jobs!"
I would not be so cocky. 99 weeks of unemployment are gonna run out pretty soon for a lot of people and they might do just that.
All over the world overpopulating failed states are invading their neighbors by massively crossing borders instead of dealing with their overpopulation problem and failed societies. It is happening in Europe, Africa, and Asia, and it is happening in North America.
The only way to force these failed societies to deal with their problems and stop their overpopulation is to prevent them from invading other countries.
Mexico is rapidly becoming a failed state with its unsustainable population, murderous drug gangs, rampant truck hijackings and open warfare in various parts of the country. We must immediately stop the Mexican invasion which is only spreading their disaster to the US. The millions of invading illegals in the US must be sent back, and the problem of anchor babies also needs to be seriously addressed. Then Mexico will be forced to deal with its overpopulating ways and failed society.
Mexican drug pushing is an act of extreme violence against the US, and should be met with massive military force. In other parts of the world drug pushers are summarily executed because of the harm they cause society.
How about we just legalise drugs, let the corporations jump on the bandwagon. If you had the choice between guaranteed safe drugs and illegaly imported you would most likely go for the legal and "safe" option. Additionally the price pressure would just drive the profitability out of illegal drugs.
What would this mean? No more drugwar in Mexico. The Mexican state would function a bit better and maybe manage to retain more of its people.
Then if you undid NAFTA the Mexican businesses would not have to face multinational megacorporations that destroy any competition, so Mexicans might find work in their own country.
The problems are self made by the US. And the people in power are benefiting from them. Best example is Wachovia laundering that immense amount of drugmoney.
So if Mexico is supposed to be cleaned up, the US will have to make the first step.
Somehow I doubt this will happen.
Unshakeable Peace
____________________________________________________________________________
[The strength of the humand mind lies in the ability to think of OUR future]
http://principlesofbeing.blogspot.com/
and yet their problems are flooding north unchecked to become ours
No, our problem, NAFTA, flooded south unchecked, and the chickens come home to roost
I object to this imagery that is so often used by anti-immigrant people - that of a horde or a flood or an invading army of dangerous people, bringing undesirable things and infecting "us" with those bad things somehow. That imagery, clearly and obviously, promotes racism.
Nothing bad, or comtagious, or destructive of evil is flooding north and harming us. People fleeing the horrendous conditions caused by US corporations and seeking a better life are helping all of us.
Capital (wealthy people) crossing borders seeking cheap labor depresses wages everywhere and hurts all of us. Labor (poor and desperate people) crossing borders and seeking higher wages helps all of us.
>>>Two Americas wrote: Capital (wealthy people) crossing borders seeking cheap labor depresses wages everywhere and hurts all of us. Labor (poor and desperate people) crossing borders and seeking higher wages helps all of us.
There is a flaw in the second part of your argument. Why would the wages go up due to movement of labor? Technically, wages could go up in the *home country* from where labor moves out - and that too, only if the numbers were near a certain critical mass, below which there would be a shortage of labor. And, although I don't talk about it usually, low birth rates too. All other things being constant, wages will not go up in the *destination* because you now have an even greater supply of labor.
It does happen, however, that after a certain point, capital would pack up and leave in search of even lower wages.
Have you thought about who the real beneficiaries are due to the constant exodus of desperate people who also make remittances back home? (Mexico's second largest source of foreign exchange, after oil exports).
The beneficiaries in the US are the businesses and the consumers who can buy cheap produce and meat. But the flip side is low wages for all. The beneficiaries in Mexico are the elite - who control their government and businesses. They now have slightly less pressure to share their wealth with their fellow citizens - because, instead of staying and fighting the rotten system at home, these poor, desperate people decide to leave. And they even send back money from their meager earnings - which I'm sure benefits their families AND the elite. The capitalist system and the church now have more people and resources that will keep them going.
I have to emphasize (although it's possible I haven't made it clear in my posts) that my real grudge is against the elite who benefit from such migration. Not at all against the desperate workers.
Capital (wealthy people) is not restricted within borders, Labor (poor people) is. If Capital is free to seek the lowest wages and Labor is restricted from seeking the highest wages, downward pressure on wages everywhere will be the result. Since Capital is operating globally, we need to think of Labor globally as well. Why would $10 an hour here depress wags more than $5 a day there, for the same product from the same worker?
Labor is not a commodity, and not an expense (except from the point of view of the wealthy people.) More workers mean more wealth produced, not less. The right wingers want to see us as a commodity subject to "supply and demand." We should reject hat thinking. Human beings are no a commodity. Beyond the fact that they should not be seen as a commodity, we are actually not commodities.
"Have you thought about who the real beneficiaries are due to the constant exodus of desperate people..."
Yes. We all are; everyone in the working class.
Two Americas, I think you are either unable or refuse to see the flaw in your logic here. What you say about the freedom of movement for capital vs. labor is true. But we are talking of the situation in the USA. More labor coming in is NOT going to increase the wages for ANYONE in the USA - all other things being constant. This is not a booming economy right now - so saying "More workers mean more wealth produced, not less" is completely WRONG. More undocumented workers simply means more profit for the business owners - that's all. Legalization through some kind of an amnesty program may help the migrant workers, that's about it.
Labor is not a commodity - that's true. But those who advocate continued inflow of desperate workers do nothing to change that reality.
>>>Why would $10 an hour here depress wags more than $5 a day there, for the same product from the same worker?
I'm not sure what you mean by that. Maybe wages won't go down in MEXICO - is that what you're saying? How about the USA?
You and others like you refuse to see that the elite in Mexico are not going to be inconvenienced the slightest bit. This is also why I remind people that remittances are the 2nd largest source of foreign exchange for Mexico.
So, to the extent that desperate people leave Mexico, and to the extent that they send back money (from their meager earnings, no doubt), the elite in the government and business IN MEXICO do not have to do their part - by sharing their disproportionate wealth with those at the bottom. Part of their "problem" is not only exported, but it is also paying them back. Even though the workers send back money to their families, there is absolutely no doubt it is helping the Mexican economy in general, and automatically their elite.
So the elite in Mexico will have NO PROBLEM in supporting you and people like you. And those business owners in the USA will support you as well - because they can continue to pay low wages. So now try to get this: the elite in MEXICO and in the USA are the REAL beneficiaries.
I've been in quiet conflict with Two Americas under his various incarnations for years now in various fora, and I've yet to feel confident that I understand his true politics.
He's an urban-revival folk musician of (apparently) considerable skill, which statistically should align him with Woody Guthrie et al. politically. And he professes to be a socialist (Marxist, ergo Commie really). Yet he takes the side of the capitalists in farming, and he seems to have consistently supported the more fraudulent "liberal" politicians, like Edwards (whence his TA handle) and (iirc) Clark.
So I'm never surprised, these days, to see him take a love-me-I'm-a-liberal position and claim that it's progressive and even leftist. Is he doing it deliberately, or out of false consciousness, or what? I've not got the faintest idea, but it does guarantee that we're almost always on opposite sides.
Force Big Ag to raise wages significantly, improve working conditions, provide medical and pension coverage and the color of the skin in the fields will turn miraculously multi-colored. White labor used to work in mines, fields and foundries and will do so again when labor is unionized and socialized. Food prices will not rise significantly, but Big Ag profits will fall, as they should.
How can that happen, other than by organizing, as you say? Immigrants are organizing at a much higher rate than non-immigrants. I am starting to hear farmers talking now about organizing against the corporations.
The bulk of the consumer dollar spent on food - 90-99 cents - does not reach the farmer. That is what depresses wags on farms or everyone, immigrants and not. Most farm workers do not work directly for corporation, but the corporations do control the food supply. It is an interesting challenge, and one we should talk about - how do we hurt the people with the power? If we are going to fight back against the corporation in the food industry we need to see that the farmers and the farm workers are in the same boat. A farmer said to me this week, in regards to corporate control over food, "we need to kill them they are going to kill us."
Complicated issue. I don't know the answers. The food supply is at increasing risk, and the infrastructure is collapsing. That does not bode well.
Damn straight, Where.
As a young person on the road I tried a very brief stint doing farm labor in Washington and California in the '70's. My best day was $14 for 10 hours of work. I know that money went much further back then, but it was still very short pay for very hard work.
Good luck finding anglo-Americans willing to work these jobs. Ain't gonna happen.
It can happen, and it is happening. With the collapsing economy and shortage of jobs, and the horrendous pressure on brown farm workers - regardless of status - we are seeing young white people in the fields for the first time in 40 years or so.
Literacy and education are the dividing line. For uneducated and illiterate people farm work is a step up, for literate and educated people there are other opportunities.
We had brown people taking farm work on their way up - at the very least for their children. We are now seeing white people taking farm work on their way down.
No one asks wealthy white immigrants for their papers, by the way. Wealthy people move freely and with impunity wherever they like, often for the purpose of exploiting resources and labor in other countries. Poor, desperate people trying to escape that exploitation are then harassed and called "illegal."
"Legal" really means wealthy and white and powerful. "Illegal really means poor, brown and powerless.
Jings, Mike -- the *Irish* are Brown? Who knew! There were tens of thousands of them in the Boston area before the short-lived tech boom in Ireland drew them home again. They came in, worked construction off the books, and dodged La Migra along with the Central-Americans.
It was *very* hard to find a carpenter, sheetrocker, or brickie who hadn't just got off the metaphorical boat--and the citizens in those trades who couldn't get work any more because of being undercut on wages weren't happy about it.
Good music at the sesiuns in the pubs, though.
"Take Our Jobs!"
Short answer - If the US Government succeeds in deporting or arresting every single 'illegal' immigrant, you poor dumb bastards are going to starve to death.
Long answer - Go ahead. Arrest/deport the 'illegals'. Then watch your entire service economy, Wal-mart megastore workforce, and jobs you are too white and privileged to dirty your oh-so-entitled hands with lifestyle crash to the ground like the Hindenberg.
This is the direct result of thirty plus years of money-for-nothing stock manipulation, outsourcing and off-shoring, combined with public apathy, deliberate 'dumbing-down' practiced in schools, distraction via Cable TV and iCrap to the point of inertia, the enshrinement of 'celebrity' based on being famous for being famous, along with a complete disenfranchising of the electorate via outright fraud and Corporate corruption.
The economy world-wide is in terminal shut down mode, and all the PTB are interested in doing is doing more of the same to try and squeeze the last few pennies of illusory profit out of a dying system.
And in the end, a vast number of Americans, most of them poor and former middle-class, are the poor, dumb bastards who will starve to death.
Non Serviam - I will not serve.
Boy are you right..dumbed down shoot first and think later croud would learn something,including the administration.
It's a little disturbing that Common Dreams would print a trite, knee-jerk article like this. As others above have noted, if these jobs paid decently, people with a legal right to work would do them. Defending the wage structure and working conditions, as is done by inference in this article, reinforces the problems inherent therein. Moreover, why is it wrong to insist that people working in the U.S. have a legal right to be there.
I live in Sweden. While there is some illegal immigration here, it is not covertly condoned by the same politicians who publicly oppose it. In fact, it's scarcely enough of an issue to discuss. The same is true throughout the EU, where legal residence is both understood and accepted as a prerequisite to employment.
"We are a nation that doesn't understand how food reaches our tables."
That can be remedied. Before people can get into farming, the basics of gardening need to be brought up and put to training first and foremost. From there, a healthy and sustainable farming can emerge. Oh, and if you are still worried about losing those farming jobs, forget Big Agri and get yourself and your neighbors where possible to socialize and garden together. Healthy foods produce healthier minds.
Crackpots who create paper transactions without production have destroyed the world economy. The U S of A goes from war to war to give the illusion its not a paper tiger. The right shouts the end is nigh and the left does the same. The hell we have created shall go on and on and on unless we begin to have respect for work and those that do it.
Quote: "If all undocumented farm workers are deported, as some have called for, the agricultural industry would need at least one million citizens or legal residents to replace the labor of these immigrants, according to government statistics."
I know a lot of prisons full of lazy bums who need work and should probably be paying rent for their cells and food so I don't have to!
The food stamps program is creating well paying information technology jobs in India administered by JP Morgan and you are telling me how food reaches our table?
I'm going to take a position somewhat contrary to my own posts earlier that questioned the enthusiasm and zeal of those speaking for undocumented workers, and just going to think out aloud. It may or may not make any sense:
Arturo Rodriguez's challenge to the Americans is a valid one, and cannot be brushed off. Because it highlights the reality of US citizens not willing to work in the farm. Of course, the automatic counter-argument is, "Not at that wage and benefit levels". And that is valid, too.
But what Rodriguez does not elaborate on is about the future. UFW's website has a summary of the AgJOBS bill. One of the main points is to legalize the status of those who are already in the US, with reasonable conditions for eligibility, and with further stipulations of minimum time to be spent on agriculture jobs. I imagine that establishing a certain legal status would then allow the farm workers to negotiate their wages and benefits. So wages are not going to stay low, and they should not. But will it stop further migration of workers? Maybe it's not his job to go into that. That will obviously depend on what happens with NAFTA and the inequality levels within Mexico. But extreme inequality has existed even before NAFTA. Something to keep in mind.
So, what is stopping others from going to work in the farm, joining the UFW or other such unions and negotiating for wage increase right now? I know it's too much work, with the results uncertain. It's obvious that the current undocumented workers are willing to take low wages now and are prepared for future uncertainty.
Going back to the issue of minimum wage, it is obvious that the current wages are low - in all sectors. However, who's going to increase the wages? The corporations? Why? Because you ask them nicely? What is going to force the corporations to reduce the income inequality? Because you ask them nicely and tell them why it's hurting the workers? Who's going to put a stop to traders and investors siphoning off "profits", leaving less to go around for the workers?
First of all, why should the US citizens be paid more for the same job compared to a Chinese or Korean or Indian or Mexican worker? Democratic and economic rights have to be earned, and the rights earned cannot be taken for granted to last generation after generation. The capitalists do not take anything for granted, and they are eternally vigilant. Unfortunately the majority have forgotten that "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."
The US dollar still has a decent purchasing power abroad, and I don't understand how come. When someone has US dollars, it means ultimately it needs to be spent in the USA to buy something produced in the USA. For example, even if South Korea sells something to India and gets paid in US dollars (which India got by selling something to the US or by borrowing), these dollars will ultimately have to find their way to the US and buy something that's produced in the country. Right now, the US is able to import a whole lot of stuff simply because the US dollar is a reserve currency. But any country holding too many US dollars should be worried about its future value.
I had to digress above because, right now the migrant workers are prepared to work for low wages, live extremely simple lives, save and make some remittance - which seems to stretch further in their home country due to exchange rates. But this exchange rate itself is somewhat artificial, illusory and unsustainable. Ultimately, the value of a currency internationally will come down to what the country has to sell: maybe natural resources, agricultural products, technical products produced using the people's brain power and physical labor, etc. AND these will have to be competitively priced too. I think there can be little argument that the global competitiveness of the US has gone down in several sectors, while it's still competitive in certain sectors. But the exports from these few sectors alone will not be sufficient to meet the import bill (which will have to be paid at some point). So the only way is for the US to limit the imports, so that they can be strictly balanced by the exports - at least over a period of time, and not necessarily year on year.
Which means, a whole lot of changes need to take place in the entire system to address the wealth and income inequality, about how money is created, how the market operates, where the wealth is going, taxation levels, and so on. And maybe certain luxuries that are ordinarily not available to most people in the world will have to go, including luxuries that are not even recognized as such by many Americans. More and more people will have to tune out of mindless diversions and ask the question - what makes them more deserving than a worker in other countries? Or even equally deserving? It looks like certain rights will need to be earned all over again.
More and more people will have to ... ask the question - what makes them more deserving than a worker in other countries? Or even equally deserving?
----------------------------
_The Ugly American_ answered that question, indirectly, 60 years ago. It was in the vignette where Col. Hillandale, USAF, nicknamed "The Ragtime Kid", rode his motorbike into a disaffected province and entered into a dialog with the locals in which he revealed that he wasn't actually rich as they thought him to be because the basic, irreducible costs of living in the US were 2-12 times what they were in that province.
And that's why people in the US are more "deserving": it's because even the most basic goods have to be bought, and the sellers are greedy. The sellers all want to live off the work of other people--it's The American Way.
Mairead, I agree - things simply cost more in the US. But even using this concept of "purchasing power parity" (PPP), the average worker in the US is way better off compared to someone doing the SAME job elsewhere - that is, assuming s/he has a job. My reason in posting that was partly to provoke - because that's something that seems to be overlooked - that the average consumption levels are still high in the US. Maybe the system is to blame for the most part. But there also certain luxuries that are not available to most people - of corresponding social levels - in other countries.
So the obvious question is, why only here? And only in certain countries? My own thinking is that historically, a certain wasteful way of life developed. It was sustained up to a point - due to the availability of resources, due to a head start in technology, imperial conquests, etc. And now when other countries are becoming competitive and resources at home are shrinking, the rich are changing their gameplan, making sure they stay rich, leaving the majority behind. If the USA is to cut down its imports to a fiscally sustainable level (where imports are balanced by exports, not relying on the US dollar being a reserve currency) and the empire is rolled back, the focus would automatically shift to the level of inequality in the country. And also to the level of consumption. Sometimes it's better to get down to the basics - I mean, the real basics and think in terms of living within means. Such an approach to an equitable and sustainable system will also tie in with action on climate change, without even talking about it explicitly.
So the obvious question is, why only here? And only in certain countries? My own thinking is that historically, a certain wasteful way of life developed. It was sustained up to a point - due to the availability of resources, due to a head start in technology, imperial conquests, etc. And now when other countries are becoming competitive and resources at home are shrinking, the rich are changing their gameplan, making sure they stay rich, leaving the majority behind.
---------------------------
Not so much "developed" as "was imposed", but yes, historians agree with you.
And FDR was the imposer, as a way to differentiate Capitalism such that the wealthy would stay wealthy and not keep trying to install Fascism, and the worker bees would become contented and stop listening to the Commies. It was really very cold-bloodedly done, and is documented in a number of places which unfortunately I can't cite at the moment because my library is a mess. Brinkley (The End of Reform) touches on it (pp 66-72) but without getting into the political calculus.
----------------------------
Sometimes it's better to get down to the basics - I mean, the real basics and think in terms of living within means. Such an approach to an equitable and sustainable system will also tie in with action on climate change, without even talking about it explicitly.
-----------------------------
I couldn't agree more. For all the emphasis on consumer this and consumer that, the real center has always been the wealthy and their desires.
If we cut them out of the equation, make them go away, we can begin thinking in terms of creating abundance without excess. By aiming to meet everyone's real, common human needs -food, clothing, shelter, healthcare, edu, community, travel, meaningful work-- rather than invented, "consumer needs", we could definitely put the brakes on climate change.
Whether we can do it in time to avoid the final-cascade tipping point and save everyone from extinction remains to be seen. But it must be worth a try, mustn't it?
Where I live immigrant labor isn't used in the fields. It's used in chicken processing plants, with absolutely no protection from any sort of union and totally open to exploitation. It's nice and romantic to talk about picking lettuce, one hell of a lot less romantic to talk about plucking chickens in boiling water in plus 100 degree weather. Not to mention basic safety.
The field isn't the end of agriculture. The meat-based part of agriculture is pure unadulterated horror, and my guess is you can't get hungry enough to work in that hell. I have seen people who did work in those plants, even former students, and saw the skin on their hands and arms literally rotting off. My second guess is all that bravado about taking-jobs-when-the-going-gets-tough shit is coming from people who don't see the reality on a daily basis.
My stepdad worked as a janitor at the local corporate mega-abattoir whose stench made mouth-breathing a necessity even ten miles away, when the wind was wrong. It was his horror stories (he was basically a very gentle man who deserved a better life than he got) that started me on the road to being a veg.
So I can wholeheartedly agree, Sherry, that stoop labor in the fields is not the worst of it by any measure.
"We are a nation that doesn't understand how food reaches our tables."
It reaches our tables by exhausted drivers of tractor-trailer/reefers. Want a job where you see your wife and family an annual one and one/quarter months out of twelve?
Read "Sweatshops on Wheels", Michael H. Belzer, Wayne State U.
Trylon, CDL-A, hazmat/tankers/multiples/motorcycles
About ten miles from where I live, out in the middle of nowhere is a huge truck stop. Sometimes I go in there and watch the drivers.
Some of them are fueling their rigs, or asleep behind one of the curtains or in their idling trucks, or in a shower, but some come in to pay for the fuel, or to eat and I get to see them.
They are dirty, they smell bad. They are exhausted, but most have no time for showers or naps. Some are fat from too much grease, some are so skinny you wonder when they ate last, all have deep lines in their faces with axle grease so far down in those crevices that it probably grows in.
You senators who are always praying in public, living in luxury compounds with other "Christians", referring to God in campaigns, Read the prophet Amos. He is talking about YOU.
I am all for granting AG workers a means to legal status.
There are a lot of issues, though, about illegal immigration.
On the one hand America needs foreign labor, and on the other it needs border control. The U.S. not only depends on foreign labor for agriculture but also for meat packing, meat processing, construction work, landscaping and many other low paying and difficult jobs. By the same token, not knowing who is crossing our borders is by far a bigger security risk than the costly and immoral occupations of Iraq or Afghanistan. Open borders increase crime. Drug wars in Mexico will soon be spilling across the borders of the United States. There is also a great deal of gang warfare on our streets and in our prisons. Anyone who is in the racial minority in prison or jail is in great danger. This sounds racist but it is unfortunately a fact. People there don't think about equality, and often divide themselves along racial lines. A few years back in L.A. a white man was stomped to death by a group of hispanics for cutting in a food line. Try reasoning with people like that...
It is nice to be so liberal about having people illegally in our country but there are also consequences. I believe illegals who are working in this country, trying to support themselves, should be given a means to become legal. Criminals, the ones that wind up in our jails, should be deported back to their countries of origin. For people wanting to seek work in the U.S., permits should be granted. Borders controls need to be tightened to keep people from simply crossing the borders, where many die and are exploited anyway.
What does "America needs foreign labor" mean? That we need people who don't look like us to exploit so we can save more money for ourselves? It is immoral not to pay someone a living wage for any type of work. And open borders don't increase crime. Reducing people's lives to ones of desperation increases crime.
I'll tell you what it means. There are certain jobs Americans wont do, and so we are dependent on people from other countries to do them. I mentioned in another comment that most Americans don't want to be on a line killing cattle for 8 to 10 hours a day, or sitting out in 95% heat harvesting vegetables. Americans wont do it. Would you? I'd probably pass out in the field on the first day.
I agree with you up to a point. All people should have a living wage, and they should pay a fair rate of taxes. If the world had an international minimum wage and workers rights most potential immigrants would stay in their own countries, if they had jobs available. But they don't. They are exploited by big business and the henchmen that do their bidding.
But reality is reality. The U.S. can't afford to just let everyone cross the border and not worry about who is coming into this country. This is insanity. When I was in the Army stationed at Fort Ord, Salinas Ca was 20% hispanic in population. It is an agricultural town in the San Juaquin Valley. I went back 15 years later and it was 50% hispanic. Today it is more than 65%, and its homicide rate is 4 times the national average. This is happening in towns all across California. We can't absorb that much immigration, but we do need them for the labor Americans wont do. That is why permits for workers is a good ideal. They should be given a good wage for their work and have unions. Most people that come here love their home countries, and just want to make a living and get out of poverty. They want to go back to their countries eventually or even seasonally. Other Illegals here should have a means to legal status and perhaps citizenship, if they want it. But we have to start having control of borders to curb illegal immigration.
Open borders does increase crime. Just a few days ago 51 bodies were found in Mexico, just across our border, that were drug related crimes. If you don't think that this will eventually spill over into America, you are sadly mistaken. Gangs are also a major problem. If you don't believe this, you are simply out of touch with reality.
I am a progressive, but I am not a prejudiced one. I call them as I see them. I was and am against the first and second invasion of Iraq and the invasion of Afghanistan. I believe war should only be used to protect our own country from invasion or harm. That's it. And I'm for international workers rights and minimum wage. I am basically a socialist on most issues. Water, food, shelter and education should be available to all people wherever they live, and the world would be better for it. But I am against unrestricted borders, because it is a security risk and a major social problem in the capitalist world we live in.
>>>frankhammer wrote: On the one hand America needs foreign labor, and on the other it needs border control. The U.S. not only depends on foreign labor for agriculture but also for meat packing, meat processing, construction work, landscaping and many other low paying and difficult jobs.
frankhammer, you haven't said why exactly those "low paying and difficult jobs" need to be done by "foreign labor", and not by the US citizens. Why should it be a given? At what point did the US citizens graduate to become more deserving enough to employ "foreign labor" to do the "low paying and difficult jobs"? I mean, I can understand a southern plantation owner in the 19th century having certain ideas as to who does what kind of job. Or the thinking of the railroad barons when they brought in Chinese workers to build the railroads. Is it more mainstream now? I could even understand Japanese companies in the early 1990's employing workers from Brazil, Peru, etc., in their factories under some kind of work permit - because back then , Japanese economy was doing well, practically all Japanese were employed, including their high school students, and they needed the foreign labor. So the requirement for labor was over-and-above what was available.
If it's not clear already, my question is directed not so much at you, but towards some others who haven't addressed this point: if Americans in general won't work for such low pay and under such conditions, and they won't fight for better pay, to repeal NAFTA, fight global capitalism, etc., but would still advocate allowing more migrant workers on a regular basis (I'm not talking about those who are already here), does it mean that the US citizens are a kind of modern-day collective slave owners? Are they advocating a permanent underclass? Or is it something else?
It is not anything sinister I am talking about. Americans won't do the jobs. Would you want to slaughter cows for 8 to 10 hours a day? Be the man/woman on the line who actually kills the cattle? I once met a man who was a supervisor in a meating packing plant. He told me almost his whole work force was hispanic; that no Americans would take the jobs. It's the same with agriculture. That's why we need labor from other countries; American citizens can get better jobs, or education or simply wont take those type of jobs. Where I live 90% of landscapers are hispanic, and most of the contruction labors are too. Nobody born here seems to want to stand out in 95% heat and do landscaping for 8 hours a day. I am just stating the facts. Most Americans wont take labor intensive or low paying jobs.