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Embracing
Labor: America's Most Valuable Commodity
September 6, 2001
by
Maren L. Hickton
"A man must see before he can say." - Henry David Thoreau
When I was growing up in the 1970s, my mother refused to
buy iceberg lettuce and grapes - the result of published reports
that immigrants were being used and abused by farmers. She
raved on and on about her boycott, that it was absolutely
unconscionable that in the land of plenty some businesses
engaged in paying poverty-level wages to workers - including
children in some cases - who labored long hours in the interest
of saving Americans what amounted to pennies at the check-out
line.
While I certainly didn't understand the scopious implications
of her protest, Mom was Mom and all I knew was that I had
to endure feasting on what I thought was a yucky variety of
New Age salad greens or no salad at all. Mom also ranted about
the citrus growers' exploitation of labor. And after that,
she talked about the dreadful labor camps in the textile industry.
And then she landed a job and stopped talking. This is what
happens to a lot of people, I guess: They get a corporate
job and stop talking. They begin to live in their own bell
jar, just go with the flow and stop paying attention.
Interestingly enough, here I am - approximately the same
age as she was then, feeling very much a part of a movement
that is now actively trying to salvage what was lost when
people stopped talking. People need to start talking again,
cushy jobs or not. And everyone involved in the hiring and
negotiation process, from major corporations to small businesses,
need to start listening.
What is going on in the U.S. labor market today is not just
limited to small pockets of people in specific industries,
particular ethnic groups or even the celebrity-branded labor
scandals of the 1980s and 1990s. The U.S. is actively encouraging
slave labor all over the globe with a domino effect that is
impacting all labor segments in our society. While globalization
will undoubtedly continue to expand trade, the U.S., including
Bush and his Administration, has done little with regard to
putting forth a set of policies to protect and fairly compensate
employees so that we don't end up in a labor mess of strikes
and lawsuits. The President and many other people in high
places, for some reason, take labor for granted, ignoring
the outcry of workers who are laboring more hours than they
ever did before, ignoring the pleas from unions for better
jobs with improved wages and benefits, and ignoring the fact
that without labor the earth would truly stand still.
This month, the Bush Administration is expected to propose
a new Mexican Guestworker Program in response to an ongoing
dialogue he has been conducting with his friend and new President
of Mexico, Vincente Fox, who wants the United States to offer
amnesty to an unknown number of illegal aliens living and
working here. The argument goes something like this: If they
are living and working here already, what's the big deal?
Many businesses support the immediate naturalization of Mexican
immigrants claiming that lower wages to labor equals lower
prices to consumers. Some prominent unions think that immigration
is good because they believe that it will spur the economy.
So the big deal is who do you believe, what effect immigration
will have on the U.S. labor market, and the dicey impact it
will have on our economy. The other big deal is that this
is part of an ongoing pattern where President Bush extends
immediate trust that has not been earned. Most interesting,
is how many people support offering amnesty, pretty much winging
it for what appears to be political reasons, ignoring some
hard evidence that does not serve U.S. long-term interests.
In an extensive report conducted by the Center of Immigration
Studies (www.cis.org) Steven Camarota, Ph.D., author, writes,
"Mexican immigration is overwhelmingly unskilled, and it is
hard to make an economic argument for unskilled immigration,
because it tends to reduce wages for workers who are already
the lowest paid and whose real wages actually declined in
the 1990s. Moreover, this cheap labor comes with a high cost.
Because the modern American economy offers very limited opportunities
for workers with little education, continued unskilled immigration
cannot help but to significantly increase the size of the
poor and uninsured populations, as well as the number of people
using welfare."
According to CIS, increasing the supply of unskilled labor,
in the 1990s for example, statistically reduced the wages
of all unskilled workers by 5%. But reduced prices to consumers
during the 1990s has only been an estimated .08 to .2 percent,
which is a tiny fraction of consumer benefit compared to the
greater impact on a large share of the working poor - those
trying to move from welfare to work.
A conflicting study by UCLA's North American Integration
and Development Center claims to demonstrate through computer
modeling that illegal immigrants contribute at least $300
billion annually to the nation's economy. To which I ask:
Does someone think this income, derived by what percentage
of what population, is going to disappear? Or their own argument:
If they are living and working here already, what's the big
deal?
And there are other studies, both pro and con.
At a time when U.S. employees are being laid-off by the thousands
and other employees face an uncertain future, I believe the
United States needs to focus on finding creative ways to fairly
employ our own workforce before we embark on providing a job
placement service for other countries. Not because Mexico
has not been a good neighbor or because of a somewhat vain
judgment made by President Vincente Fox that "Previous Mexican
governments lacked the legitimacy and vision to transform
Mexico's foreign policy...," but that he does - simply because
he says so. Not because we do not welcome the skills demonstrated
by the hard working people of Mexico. What is absent in the
proposal is the fact that we would be showing favor to one
group of people ahead of many others who have been waiting
much longer to become naturalized citizens - workers who
have clearly demonstrated value to the U.S. - which may also
necessitate a review of some of the seemingly biased practices
of the INS.
In Bush's proposed Mexican Guestworker Program, many immigrant
workers would be provided with jobs in the United States and,
as President Fox noted in a recent Op-Ed (New York Times),
"...the Mexican work force could be given economic incentives
to stay home, bringing about growth in my country." How about
the impact this program would have on our country? Our workforce?
Fox further states that, "Tough decisions will have to be
made by both governments, and they need to be made now. If
we lose momentum, we will lose the opportunities at hand."
I would suggest that "momentum" might be something that President
Fox and President Bush are concerned about, both new to their
respective positions in office and certainly interested in
forging ahead with their agendas. And I would agree that the
business community would receive immediate benefit from a
flooded labor market, thus enabling them to reduce wages and/or
benefits and their bottom-line labor costs. But words like,
"decisions...need to be made now," bother me; the people should
not be rushed into anything. All Americans, speaking through
their representatives in Congress, should decide what, if
any, opportunities are at hand that are beneficial to our
government, industries, and most importantly, what is fair,
first - to every American worker and their family.
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