ASSHOLE COMPANIES Hire Illegals Because They Don't Want to Pay! -->

[Dr. Jones]

This is pure and utter BULLSHIT. It's not the nature of the work you assholes (I'm referring to the companies, not my DU friends!), it's because you don't want to PAY THEM LIVABLE WAGES!!! This is a HUGE problem, particularly in the big cities. That is the focus of the article.

I grew up and lived in the Washington DC area for many years before relocating. In the last eight years, I've seen housing costs and the cost of just about everything else SKYROCKET. You can't sustain a mortgage, or for that matter, rent - on $7.50/hr. It just can't be done! This is a HUGE problem in the big cities, and I personally don't have any idea how ANYONE, Illegal or not, makes it there on such low hourly wages.

These assholes know that. So they turn to a group of ILLEGAL immigrants who won't unionize, won't ask for higher wages or healthcare, and won't sue when they get hurt.

It's NOT that the work is so difficult. It's because asshole companies won't pay a living wage! Americans WILL do and DO do these jobs such as painting, woodworking, welding, picking lettuce, construction work, truck driving, etc. - but the ASSHOLE companies REFUSE to pay us a living wage! And as a result, many good middle-class Americans are being shut out of their lifetime careers, and many are being laid off and replaced with illegals. I call it blue-collar insourcing.

Middle-class Americans know they can't survive on these low wages. Not because they refuse based on personal preference, or that they are somehow "above" doing such work. Even if Americans wanted to do the work (and there are lots that do), they could never afford to live on such low salaries in the big cities.

Help Wanted as Immigration Faces Overhaul
Congress Considers New Rules, and Businesses Worry About Finding Workers

By S. Mitra Kalita and Krissah Williams
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, March 27, 2006; Page A01

Year after year, Professional Grounds Inc. runs a help-wanted ad to find landscapers and groundskeepers. Starting wage: $7.74 per hour. In a good year, three people call. Most years, no one does. So the Springfield company relies on imported labor -- seasonal guest workers allowed to immigrate under the federal guest-worker program -- to keep itself running. For 10 months this year, 23 men from Mexico and Central America will spend their days mulching and mowing, seeding and sodding for Professional Grounds.

Occasionally, company President Bill Trimmer asks himself: If I doubled wages, would native-born Americans apply? He thinks he knows the answer. "I don't think it's a wage situation. It's the type of work and the nature of the work. It's hard, backbreaking work," said Trimmer, who started the company 31 years ago. "I think we're a more affluent society now. They expect more. Everybody expects more. . . . I have contracts, and they want an affordable price, too."

Here lies the dilemma facing Congress as it attempts an immigration overhaul. Businesses say it is hard to persuade Americans to perform the unskilled jobs that immigrants easily fill. Significantly higher wages might work, but that increase would be passed on to unhappy consumers, forcing Americans to give up under-$10 manicures and $15-per-hour paint and lawn jobs.

Yet against a backdrop of heightened scrutiny of those who cross U.S. borders and the estimated 12 million migrants already here illegally, most everyone agrees that the current immigration system warrants a severe makeover.

Source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/26/AR2006032601058.html

[LisaLynne]

1. I agree that we need to focus on the companies ...

They are the ones benefiting at the cost of the workers -- legal citizens or not. And why? It's simply about profits. It's not about the survival of their company or competions. Corporations are recording record profits and they are not reinvesting that money. It's goign into the bank accounts of CEOs and board members and shareholders and as far as they are concerned this entire country and everybody in it can starve to death. They can't even see that in the end that will end their profits. They are out for what they can get now.

[Dr. Jones]

3. That's right.

That's why you'll see steam coming out of my ears when so-called economists tell us that outsourcing CREATES jobs in America. In the years since the trend began, I have seen a net LOSS of jobs! Furthermore, to believe that companies are sending their workers overseas for cheap labor - and then in turn hiring more workers in the U.S. - is LUDICROUS!! They just put that money into their pockets.

Insourcing and outsourcing is killing our middle class.

[guruoo]

4. They just don't get it

[KurtNYC]

2. Yes - Fix the employment side first - then the immigration side

Employers of undocumented people do not have to do paperwork or pay matching taxes so even at $7.50/hr it is far cheaper to hire undocumented labor. As long as it is cheaper, they will do it.

[Dr. Jones]

5. How Anti-American!

It's Anti-American to say F-U to your fellow American middle class worker who is struggling to make ends meet! Anti-American to hire illegal labor. The whole thing is one big slap in the face.

[napi21]

7. You're RIGHT, but there's another PRIME goal of these Co's.

KEEP all the BIG $$ for the owners/stockholders! The illegal immigration problem is just another side of the outsourcing coin!

Ten-fifteen years ago, MOST CEO's were being paid at about 5-20 times the earnings of their workers. What is it today? 1,000-5,000 times???? I see THAT as the real problem! Most of it started with Reagan intentionally destroying the Unions, and giving the freedom for all those mergers and acquisitions. The only way for these guys to keep their multimillion $ annyal salary package is to cut the costs of everyone elses pay.

I only wish I knew how to fix that! The only ones who COULD change it are the stockholders, and most of the major ones are the same CEO's who make the $$$$!

[MADem]

9. Yep, that cash floats UPWARD

It's not a question of companies not being able to afford to pay their workers, it is a question of being able to pay their workers AND give the head guy an obscene compensation. It's greed at the top.

[TahitiNut]

6. The Bushoilini Regime has given predatory companies a free pass.

In 1999, only about 420 companies were fined for employing undocumented workers. In 2004, only three companies were fined. The Inspector General for the Social Security Administration has reported four times that approximately 3,000 companies have more than 200 'warning letters' where the Social Security numbers of employees don't match basic identification parameters, forcing deposits to be placed in suspense accounts, now amounting to about $300B. However, in the opinion of lawyers the INS/ICE and IRS are prohibited from using Social Security records to identify and prosecute these companies - the most likely abusers of labor.

The cheap-labor neoconservatives, solely representing the interests of global corporatism, have abandoned any pretense of enforcement.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

8. I've picked fruit professionally

as have others in my family. My brother used to do the type of work described above. The only reason we're not doing it now is that we've gotten too old. But don't give me the bs that younger, able bodied Americans aren't willing to do this work.

[sallyseven]

10. 5,000. fine for every undocumented worker in your employ.

10,000 there after. Watch the immigration problem go away. Make the rich son of a guns pay a decent wage and stop the partial slavery. Then work on the immigration of additional people to the US.

[Dr. Jones]

11. You betcha!

College students, high school students...many groups of Americans would be willing to do the work - some even for FREE!!

And don't forget to factor in other groups of Americans such as inmates who would be better off contributing to society than to rot in prison.

[Gormy Cuss]

12. What is really wrong with Mr. Trimmer's story is that he uses H1B workers

not illegal immigrants but legal seasonal visa workers who are authorized because of a demonstrated shortage of resident laborers to fill the demand. Note that in order to demonstrate this you must certify that you aren't offering lower wages to the immigrants. So, if he offers the job for a low wage without benefits and no one applies, what does that say -- is it a labor shortage, or an artificially low wage that creates the perceived shortage?

When I first read this story last week I wanted to call Mr. Trimmer and offer him my nephew's name. He'd do it for $7.75/hr with benefits, and that would cost Trimmer about double the wage he's offering now. I wonder what he would say to that.

[teamster633]

13. Nothing beats a sure thing.

"So they turn to a group of ILLEGAL immigrants who won't unionize, won't ask for higher wages or healthcare, and won't sue when they get hurt."

For these thugs it's not enough that something might not happen. They are much happier knowing something can't happen. I submit that the attraction of the current system to these modern day robber barons is that the illegal status of their employees mean that they can't unionize, can't ask for higher wages, and can't sue when they get hurt. The enormous leverage this provides for the employer is tantamount to slavery. Indentured slavery, yes, but slavery nontheless-the terms of indenture being: do as I ask for what I'm willing to offer or get the hell out of the country.

[Dr. Jones]

14. Interesting.

That's true. They can't.