The Perfect Argument To Shut Down ‘Illegals Are Stealing Our Jobs’ Rhetoric

[cascadiance]

62. THIS is the problem, and "guest worker" programs have basically made this kind of employment "legal"

This is the problem with H-1B and H-2B/H-2A employment programs that basically LET employers hire foreign workers *legally* who come most of the time temporarily at:

a) reduced wages,
b) reduced ability to move to different jobs,
c) temporary time period,
d) unable to unionize,
e) unable to vote

.. and most of the time these people are supporting off-shore families at perhaps a TENTH of the cost of living that domestic workers have to support their families here for. This reduced amount of expenditures for a temporary amount of time:

a) lets the worker work for less and still be able to save money that a domestic worker can't.
b) sends the money they earn OUT of our economy so that it stimulates other world economies rather than our own, when spent.
c) the worker gets the skills and experience instead of domestic workers (even a bigger problem for H-1B visa jobs) that ultimately goes overseas to other places like Bangalore, India instead of building up domestic worker skills, experience, and talents.

Who benefits here? Just the wealthy who can get people to work for them for less, and therefore they pocket more of the money instead of paying it to workers the way they should. Our growing wealth economic gap statistics and who gets the benefits of increased productivity shows that this is what is happening.

And looking at the way that it has been documented how H-2B/H-2A workers had been abused after they were brought in to take Americans' jobs after Katrina, you can see how much employers abuse workers like this where it is documented. In the case of illegals, this kind of abuse is probably even more prevalent and not documented.

http://www.thenation.com/article/these-workers-came-overseas-help-rebuild-after-hurricane-katrina-and-were-treated-prison/

There is a claim that they come from Mexico to "do the jobs we won't do". The real line should be that they come from South America to "do the jobs Americans CAN'T AFFORD TO DO AT THE WAGES THEY WANT TO PAY". If they paid living wages for these jobs instead of pay that only foreigners can afford to work for to send back home to families living at a cost of living often times a 10th of what ours is, then Americans would do this work.

Now, might that mean we have higher costs of food, etc.? Maybe to some degree, but it should also mean that people actually have jobs where they can afford food, etc. whether it is higher priced or lower priced. It would also mean there is more balance in pay between those who own or manage businesses and those who do the work for them at some point, and that by doing so, everyone can afford to buy stuff and put that money back in to our economy, which ultimately will help grow those businesses anyway.

And if we coupled that with raising the top marginal tax rate to be what it was pre-Reagan times, then more business owners would seek to put the business earnings back in the business rather than pay themselves too much, looking to shelter that money from taxation the way they used to.

The last things we should be doing is helping fuel the notion that they come to do the work that we won't do. That notion doesn't benefit American workers, and fuels the xenophobia that is prevalent on the right too. We should be looking to help organize workers globally so that there is no "bottom to race to" any more, reduce the "free trade" deals that look to facilitate the "race to the bottom" corporate agendas, and to help streamline our immigration process too, and encourage those that really want to just immigrate here and become a part of our country to go that route instead of trying to get here as a "guest worker" or "undocumented worker" when that route has been currently cut off (and I would say intentionally cut off by those serving pro corporate exploiter's interests)

This article is long, but it starts to look at the various forces trying to push guest worker programs over the years, that have had various different agendas behind them. A good quote from Teddy Roosevelt sums things up nicely here:

Never under any condition should this nation look at an immigrant as
primarily a labor unit. He should always be looked at primarily as a
future citizen.

-- Theodore Roosevelt, 1917

http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1000&context=dorothy_hill