Alex McGregor wrote:
> OK, lots of people seem concerned about this issue, so I thought I'd put
> in my 20 cents worth (inflation, ya know).
>
> The migrant farm worker issue exists for 2 reasons: Prejudice and Fear
> (although the 2nd is a subset of the 1st).
>
> There has always been a prejudice against Latinos- especially in the
> Southwestern part of the US. We just don't want "their kind" coming into
> our lilly white, god fearing country and subverting our values and
> marrying our daughters. Hell, they even don't speak English!
>
> The fear is a hold-over from the days when Americans would work in
> factories, mills and on farms. The (fill in the blank with Poles, Irish,
> Chinese...) immigrants competed for these jobs years ago. The truth now
> is that no Americans are willing to work in low paying, menial jobs. The
> Mexicans are- the minimum wage per hour here is a 10 hour day's pay in
> Mexico. That would be like paying $40 per hour for factory jobs here.
> Also, someone I met at a Sustainability Conference said he employed
> mostly Mexicans in his carpet factory. He told me how he ran ads for
> jobs offering above minimum wage to start and noone applied. He said the
> Mexicans will work hard, do a good job and ask to work overtime.
>
> Now, let's suppose that the average pay for a 50 to 60 hour work week
> here was $25 and the Mexican factories and farms were paying $200 for 40
> hours and you could make $350 per hour for 60 hors (with overtime pay).
> If the cost of livings, etc. were reversed for the 2 countries, the
> factory pay would be equivalent to $1,600 to $2,800.
>
> This would mean that all those Americans who couldn't feed and house
> their families would cross the border, take whatever work they could get
> and send their families as much as they could.
>
> To think that there's anything else driving the migrant farm labor
> "problem is ridiculous. There's a shortage of workers in our factories
> and on our farms because not many of us are willing to be laborers or
> farm workers and the Mexicans are willing to work at any kind of job
> here to feed their families.
>
> I like Dale's idea of legitimizing migrant workers:
> "Wouldn't an easy solution to the illegal migrant labor
> problem be to legalize it? The government could make it easier to get
> temporary work visas."
>
> We can't stop the influx of hungry, desperate people wanting jobs we
> don't. So what's our problem with coming up with some way to satisfy the
> workers and the business and farm owners? I refer you to reason #1
> above.
>
> Alex
>
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