Columns

Pay us enough, and we'll do it

By ROBYN BLUMNER
Published April 15, 2007

Inevitably, during a debate on illegal immigration, someone will claim that we need this population because they will do the work that no American will do. President Bush said it Monday in Yuma, Ariz., while pushing his new guest worker program. Temporary workers, he said, are needed so the Border Patrol "will not have to try to chase people who are coming here to do work Americans are not doing."

This argument infuriates me. There is no such thing as work that Americans won't do. (Bush neatly arabesqued around what "Americans won't do" by saying what "Americans are not doing." Same message.)

Americans will do any kind of work. They dig coal miles underground in dangerous mines, they pick up garbage on the street, they work in sewers, they harvest fruits and vegetables on their own farms and they fill mind-numbing assembly-line jobs.

Here is what Americans by and large won't do. They won't work in physically demanding jobs for a wage that doesn't support a family. They won't do grueling work, such as in roofing or construction, that doesn't offer sick pay or annual vacation time. They won't work in the blood and bile pits of slaughterhouses without reasonable health and safety standards.

When these industries complain that they can't find American workers, what they mean is they can't find enough people willing to work for the pay, benefits and working conditions offered. Illegal immigrants do take American jobs, by allowing employers to make jobs unpalatable. If this shadow work force were unavailable, market forces would transform most of those jobs into decent work.

A piece in the Wall Street Journal in January illustrated this point. The article described what happened when a chicken processing plant in Stillmore, Ga., lost 75 percent of its primarily Hispanic 900-member work force after an immigration raid. Immediately the company, Crider Inc., advertised that it had boosted its wages a dollar an hour, and started to provide free transportation and free dorm rooms. The company went to the state employment office to find low-skilled laborers and ended up with 400 candidates, of which 200 were hired.

It turns out that the local African-American community lined up for these jobs. Though the experience wasn't all rosy.

According to the Journal, "the allure of compliant Latino workers willing to accept grueling conditions despite rock-bottom pay has proved a difficult habit for Crider to shake." The result was a high turnover rate as complaints arose over conditions and pay.

Powerless employees are so much more attractive than those the law protects.

President Bush has made it a centerpiece of his immigration reform initiative to offer people who have been working in the United States illegally a "Z" visa. The visa would legalize their status, be good for three years, and be indefinitely renewable.

John Keeley of the Center for Immigration Studies says Bush's plan is "sanctioning a serf class of workers." I agree. It also keeps around a group of vulnerable workers who will continue to exert a downward pressure on wages.

A disturbing 48-page report by the Southern Poverty Law Center titled "Close to Slavery" (www.splcenter.org) documents the abuses that our current guest worker program inflicts on these essentially disposable humans. Because they are consigned to one employer and have no mobility and few legal rights, guest workers are often cheated of their wages, forced to live in squalid conditions and made virtual prisoners. If they complain, they can be deported.

Since we can't properly police the modest programs we have now for foreign workers, why would we do a better job when the program expands exponentially?

Actually, I think it's a convenient fallacy to suggest that there is a dearth of available unskilled labor and an additional alien work force is needed. According to Ira Mehlman, spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, 21 percent of the adult population of the United States is functionally illiterate. "We might run out of a lot of things in this country but unskilled workers are not one," Mehlman says.

Despite our ostensibly low unemployment rate, thousands of people keep showing up for jobs at Wal-Mart when they open a store. But if we do need more workers, then why not just open our legal immigration process to more people every year?

We all know why: Employers don't really want a bunch of empowered new Americans. They want a ready supply of meek, pliant, exploitable workers.

And the president is trying to oblige.

[Last modified April 14, 2007, 18:17:35]