Reply #83: Deal With Illegal Immigration By Addressing Demand, Not Supply

[Strelnikov_]

Meatpacking jobs (in the midwest) paid a middle class wage ($20/hr) in the 70's. These jobs provided good health care and retirement benefits because they were unionized. As was related by a worker from this era, the social contract was that it was hard, dangerous work that left most workers crippled when they retired, and the compensation reflected this.

Over the 70's and 80's non-union plants were opened, and the unionized plants closed or the unions busted. As compensation was much lower at the non-union plants, U.S. citizens abandoned the industry, and the labor void was filled with immigrant's. Since the supply of this labor is virtually unlimited, compensation and workplace safety has plummeted.

The 70's era worker, in the interview I heard, indicated that there would be no problem attracting U.S. citizens to the industry if compensation and workplace conditions were similar to the 70's.

Here is an excerpt from a study that describes the change in the meatpacking industry in Storm Lake, Iowa:

Meatpacking And The Migration Of Refugee And Immigrant Labor To Storm Lake, Iowa
http://migration.ucdavis.edu/cf/comments.php?id=154_0_2_0

The Hygrade workforce was primarily male and of European descent. Only in its last few years of operation, in the late l970s to early 1980s, did a few women work on the plant floor. The plant’s workforce was from Storm Lake and surrounding communities. Prior to the mid-1980s, Storm Lake was almost exclusively Anglo, and this homogeneity was reflected in Hygrade’s workforce. Many of Hygrade’s workers put in thirty years or more at the plant, reflecting a low turnover. For many, their jobs supported a comfortable, middle-class lifestyle. Average annual incomes were about $30,000, but some senior workers earned up to $40,000 or more in Hygrade’s last year of operation.

In October 1981, Hygrade closed its plant and Storm Lake lost five hundred jobs. Community leaders immediately set about attracting a new buyer for the plant.

In April 1982 IBP announced its purchase of the plant for $2.5 million. After extensive renovation, this became the company's first pork-packing facility (IBP previously had processed only beef.) IBP’s move into pork processing signaled a major transformation of the industry.

When IBP opened its doors in September 1982, its workforce did not resemble the old Hygrade crew. Hundreds of former Hygrade workers applied, but fewer than thirty were hired. IBP would look beyond the Storm Lake community for its laborers. Beginning wages were only $6 an hour, and health benefits become available only after six months on the job. (Today, starting wages are $7 an hour.) The new plant had higher productivity expectations than the old plant. Injury rates climbed, and high employee turnover increased the strain on local labor supplies.


It appears to me that (uncontrolled) immigrant labor fills a void that it perpetuates, low wages that make the jobs undesirable due to an oversupply of labor, the classic supply/demand relationship. All the current immigration policy of this country does is create a black market for labor, exploiting those who are here illegally, and driving down the wages and working conditions so for legal residents and immigrants the job is a step backward.

Of course, from the lofty perch of a tenured teaching position or defined benefit/trust fund annuity, the impact of the labor black market on the middle and lower class working people of this country seems to be, well, no problem at all.

What we need is a guest worker program to stop the exploitation of immigrants and end the flooding of the labor market due to uncontrolled immigration. This will address illegal immigration by dealing with demand (employers).

Some thoughts on immigration policy from John Sayles which sums up my feelings on this issue.

John Sayles
From:A People's Democratic Platform

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040802&s=forum

The Democratic platform should call for an end to the hypocrisy of our immigration policy. Our current policy, an enormously expensive cat-and-mouse game, most notably on our southern border, calls on the INS to enforce immigration laws that are openly expected to be ignored by countless US industries and private employers. Some sort of regulated guest-worker program is needed.

Once it is in place, if immigrants continue to enter the country illegally and can't find work, word will filter back and the numbers will decrease dramatically. While in our country, however, those guest workers need to be protected from exploitation--to be assured they will be paid for their work, that their working conditions will meet state and federal safety standards and that they will receive no less than the federally mandated minimum wage (which needs to be raised).

Employers would be required to withhold some percentage (perhaps the equivalent of federal taxes and Social Security) from wages to help defray the costs of the program. Penalties for hiring foreign workers outside of the program would be high enough (and sufficiently enforced) to end the black market in labor that is thriving now.

Protecting all workers in this country is an important first step toward the amendment or abolition of NAFTA and the protection of workers throughout the world.