Re: Americans will not do the work immigrants will do


"Taylor" <123@xxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:QvTVf.27947$1Z5.24606@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Joe S." <anon@xxxxxxxx> wrote in message
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It's not the low wages that keeps Americans from taking the jobs
immigrants take -- it's the work. Americans will no longer do stoop
labor.


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

QUOTE

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.

A recent study by the Pew Hispanic Center estimated that unauthorized
immigrants make up nearly 5 percent of the labor force. In the
Washington
region, they make up nearly 10 percent of the 3.1 million-strong
workforce, providing mainly unskilled labor.

The federal government has a work visa -- known as H-2B -- that aims to
help unskilled migrants enter the country legally. But the government
issues only about 66,000 new H-2B visas each year. The guest workers,
who
generally take jobs in businesses such as restaurants, amusement parks,
cleaning companies and landscaping firms, are allowed to stay for 10
months.

The immigration measure passed by the House last year would allow the
guest-worker program to lapse. Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee
resumes debating legislation proposed by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). It
would create a new guest-worker program that would allow foreigners to
enter the United States for three years, with the possibility of renewal
for another three years.

Both House and Senate plans place on employers the onus for verifying
the
legal status of workers with the creation of a national database of
Social
Security or work identification numbers. Besides requiring enforcement,
the proposals would impose criminal penalties on employers who hire
someone not authorized to work in the United States.

Under current law, companies must review two forms of government-issued
identification to verify that a job applicant is a legal resident.
Beyond
keeping copies of IDs on file, many businesses say they do little more
than take workers at their word. While some readily dismiss illegal
workers, they don't necessarily report them and their whereabouts to the
federal government.

Businesses say they already patrol job applications to sift out
counterfeit documents. At least four out of 10 applicants for jobs at
Harry's Essential Grille in Vienna present work documents that look like
frauds, such as Social Security cards that feel too thin, said Jason
Steward, manager of the restaurant.

"You have a gut feeling," Steward said. The company he works for,
Essential Restaurant Holdings LLC, has hired 200 people since opening
its
two Northern Virginia restaurants 2 1/2 years ago. About half of its
workers are immigrants. He does not object to checking a Social Security
number in a national database. But he worries about being the first line
of defense for the company. If he messes up, Essential Restaurants could
be fined or face criminal penalties under some of the proposals before
Congress.

Brett McMahon, vice president of Bethesda-based Miller & Long Concrete
Construction Co., one of the biggest concrete contractors in the
country,
with $300 million in annual revenue, said his concern is that the
legislation would essentially turn his company into "an enforcer of
who's
legal and who's not." McMahon said, "It's nowhere near that simple to
check."

In the past 15 years, the Labor Department has audited McMahon's company
five times looking for illegal workers -- each time finding none,
McMahon
said. He added that the House bill threatens to bring his business to a
"screeching halt" because there is no provision for a guest-worker
program
or for dealing with the undocumented immigrants already working.

But advocates of tighter borders say hiring foreigners should be
difficult, not just for security but to limit competition between
less-skilled immigrants and Americans.

"Employers in many of these sectors have gotten themselves into a
Catch-22
situation where if they do not look the other way and hire illegal
workers, they will not be competitive with other businesses," said Jack
Martin, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform,
an
advocacy group governed by business leaders and activists favoring
national immigration limits.

"The wages and working conditions where there are large numbers of
illegal
workers have been driven down to the point where those jobs are not as
attractive to American workers," Martin said.

According to the Pew Hispanic Center data, undocumented workers tend to
be
clustered in service and construction jobs and make up more than half of
the region's janitorial and landscape workers. Forty-three percent of
the
region's construction workers are illegally in the United States or have
only temporary work authorization, the data show.

Wages for landscaping and groundskeeping workers in the Washington area
have risen slightly in recent years, according to the Bureau of Labor
Statistics, from an average of $9.61 per hour in 1999 to $10.51 in 2004.
Professional Grounds' Trimmer said most employees, including guest
workers, earn $9 to $11 per hour.

Construction wages in the Washington area have risen from an average of
$15.86 in 1999 to $17.19 in 2004, according to the bureau. McMahon
estimated that construction wages these days are even higher -- roughly
$20 an hour, plus health care.

"People think construction is about hiring day laborers in a Lowe's
parking lot and throwing them in a pickup and paying them $2 an hour,"
McMahon said.

The company has roughly 60 projects underway, including offices, hotels
and condominiums, and employs about 2,800 workers in the Washington
area -- three-fourths of them immigrants.

"Every time I put up a crane, they are the guys who show up," McMahon
said.

At Professional Grounds' Springfield office, Trimmer said the
guest-worker
program insulates him from having to deal with forged documents. Trimmer
started using the H-2B program about five years ago to fill the void
left
by high school and college students who preferred air-conditioned summer
internships over the work he could offer.

The guest workers arrive in February or March and pay $40 a week for
housing subsidized by the company. A van picks up and drops off those
who
can't drive; workers who have driver's licenses pay $3 per day for the
use
of a company car. Workers pay income, Social Security and Medicare
taxes.

One of his workers, Abelardo Flores, said he likes returning to his wife
and three children in Mexico after making money for 10 months. Two other
workers, Luciano Arango and Marcos Ochoa, said they would like to
permanently live in the United States someday. All said they had worked
for the company last year. Trimmer cited investments he makes in the
guest
workers, from English classes to housing, as proof that he views them as
more than cheap labor.

Once, Trimmer confessed, he did hire an illegal worker: a Nicaraguan man
named Victor Parrales on a tourist visa.

Next week will mark Parrales's 22nd year with the company; Professional
Grounds sponsored his green card, and he eventually became a citizen.
Parrales now owns a house in Alexandria and boasts the title of vice
president.

A piece of paper taped to Parrales's office door advertises that
Professional Grounds needs more workers. In fact, the company says it
will
pay workers who bring forward qualified candidates a $1,000 referral
fee.

END QUOTE

This article describes the situation in the area around Washington, DC.
Here in Central Appalachia, instead of taking a construction job or
picking tomatoes or harvesting Christamas trees, it's easier to get a
friendly doctor to certify that you are "disabled" for "depression" and
prescribe several meds -- all of which you can sell on the street to
supplement your "disability income." This then allows you to finance a
new 4WD dually and a bass boat, then, when you aren't fishing, you can
sit
in the local bar and piss and moan about the "wetbacks" who are taking
all
the jobs. Just like bully, rightwinghank, Krusty, Pukie, and the like.












Completely false. If you paid $200 an hour, you would have a line around
the block of Americans wanting that job. It is not that Americans won't
do
it, it's that they won't do it for minimum wage.

That is correct. The market will balance itself out. If a business owner
cannot pay an appropriate wage to attract workers then he or she needs to
find another business. Or get a job themselves.


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