Alanna

Again, if this wasn’t so sad it would be funny. Arizona is looking at ways to get workers from Mexico into the United States to aid their industries, agriculture, steel, travel/tourism etc… Radical idea here folks require those that are already here to become legal and offer them a path! Then we don’t shoot ourselves in the foot by damaging our commercial, residential real estate markets, protect businesses and productivity, and stop the non-sense of kicking them out before we have to invite them back.

18 Thoughts to “Arizona Wants Labor – Not Laborers”

  1. park'd
    May 9, 2008 at 12:58 pm

    I don’t think you will find too many people that say we don’t need some low skilled illegal alien labor to do jobs that Americans won’t do, although I think that excuse is wayyyy overused and overblown. What people are dead set against is having an army of people come here to work for corporations like that sheet welder guy in the video above and then having the tax payer subsidize their stay while they are here. If the sheet welder guy has lost 4 million dollars this year then I see no reason why he can’t hire guest workers who have checked out with authorities and then he can pay for their room and board while they work for him. Allowing him to horde all of the profits while we foot the bill for his workforce is what we are cracking down on. The corporations that use this labor need to be responsible for them from soup to nuts and the tax payer should not be involved at any point. This would provide for the much needed labor, keep our streets a lot safer and our pocketbooks fatter to boot.

  2. elvis
    May 9, 2008 at 7:25 pm

    Park,

    I totally agree with you. we do need low skilled labor, today’s teens have become “bitchy” about what work they do/want to do. I dont know how else to put it and I’m speaking generally. They also want a ton of money and do not really dish out the work for it. I’ve got a kid down the street who mows my law, charges 5.00 and edges too. Another kid down the street charges 10.00 and doesnt do a thing other than barely run the mower across, no extras and he still wants premium pay. I give the other guy 10.00 and he does a smokin’ job. I think it’s the culture versus when alot of us grew up and we worked for every penny and work we did..sometimes until fingers bled, walk to work in 90+ MPH winds, uphill, in a snowstorm, etc…the work ethic isnt there I’m afraid, it got lost among the video games (not saying anything bad about video games, I’m known to throw down a few brews and partake)

    alot different these days so yes, we could use a little bit of help but it has to be tightly controlled.

  3. Red Dawn
    May 9, 2008 at 8:12 pm

    “the work ethic isn’t there I’m afraid,it got lost among the video games (not saying anything bad about video games, I’m known to throw down a few brews and partake)”

    YES, video games, CELL PHONES, INTERNET ( my space, face book, etc., etc) PARENTS HAVING to work MORE or the COMMUTE becomes LONGER and LONGER ( even the SAME destination for years)

    I see TECHNOLOGY has taken over when WE had to USE our brains, our back breaking LABOR to get things done to earn the almighty $.
    Everyone always says, kids today/back when we used to have to walk to school , blah, blah, blah….WHAT is DIFFERENT today then 10/20 years ago?

    TECHNOLOGY! ( my final answer) and IF you are materialistic, you cannot keep up! LOL

    AND…it makes it ALL the more EASIER to OUTSOURCE!!!!

  4. kgotthardt
    May 9, 2008 at 8:13 pm

    I clearly remember working for $2.00 an hour and thinking I was luckiest kid in the world! I guess that was a DIFFERENT world.

  5. Firedancer
    May 9, 2008 at 9:35 pm

    HA HA HA HA. What a surprise. This is what will happen around the country. Couldn’t we just have disbanded with the whole anti immigrant thing, accepted that we need the workers, and find a way to legalize them?

  6. Moon-howler
    May 9, 2008 at 10:00 pm

    The kid excuse is really getting old. What about industries that need workers during school hours? I have found many teenagers to be arrogant and to do a half-A$$ job on things.

    We raise our kids to aspire to not do low skilled jobs. No wonder they are arrogant Most of them get whatever they want. God forbid that someone doesn’t have not only an ipod but also in the color of their choice. They listen to trash on them when the do have them.

    We will always need low skilled workers as long as the bare minimum educational level is high school graduate. What person with a high school diploma will think they should do stoop work, road work, or any other job that doesn’t require finely tuned skills? The drop outs are often so rife with problems and ‘issues’ that no one wants to deal with them for very long. We outsource jobs to India. Major disconnect here.

    My first job was $1.00 and I, like KG, thought I was one of the luckiest kids in the world.

  7. WhyHereWhyNow
    May 9, 2008 at 10:16 pm

    Thank you for finding this news piece! On CNN no less! I hope some of the Cult Members watch this (don’t tell them it’s not Lou Dobbs). It proves everything I have been saying about Prince William County since before the Stephen Fuller videos. When people are afraid, angry, misinformed, and misled, they can demand some pretty stupid policies. This Immigration Resolution was like chopping of your hand because someone told you hangnails were lethal.

    Turns out, blood loss is lethal, (the arteries you have to cut through to remove a hand carry blood throughout the body). Our county, and our country is one organism. Regardless of religion, skin color, social class, sexual orientation, or legal status, no one is expendable.

    We can only hope that the Supervisors changed course in time. With all the confusion about whether the Immigration Resolution has been strengthened or weakened, I can’t see how we escape the worsening economic situation we’ve put ourselves in (a la Arizona, a la Riverside, NJ). The saddest thing is that we did this knowing that those other places had already seen the same results and changed their minds. Why couldn’t we have reached for a nail clipper instead of an axe?

    In Prince William County, the hand with a hang nail is only half chopped through. It can be healed with time. But can we afford to wait? Perhaps we do need a P.R. company like Stephen Fuller suggested. Perception is more important than reality. And we do have the worst reputation on the Eastern Seaboard right now. Worse than Herndon, by the way. As much as it was the right thing to do, I fear the welcome but confusing elimination of “Probable Cause” will be too little too late.

  8. Firedancer
    May 9, 2008 at 10:24 pm

    But the cult leader is a clever master of spin. I look forward to his interpretation of this newsclip.

  9. rod2155
    May 10, 2008 at 6:46 am

    “Silent soldiers on a silver screen;
    Framed in fantasies and drugged in dreams;
    Unpaid actors of the mystery.
    The mad director knows that freedom will not make you free,
    And what’s this got to do with me?”

    -Opening verse from “The War Is Over” by Phil Ochs -1968

    If the parents claim the teens can do the jobs, then the teens need to stand up and prove it. I get annoyed when some parent launches into a tirade about foreign invaders doing the work that their child is entitled to and hence ruining their child’s morale and future. Excuse me but those video games and cell phones you bought for your kids, the ones manufactured over seas?!?! Are they not foreigner invaders that have effected your children’s life? How many of these mothers and fathers rant about criminal illegal aliens while their own kids are pro’s on “Grand Theft Auto IV?” ever wonder what influences them to believe it’s morally correct to charge three times as much as a job is honestly worth?

    As they say, Illegal Immigration is just the tip of the iceberg! Our reliance on foreign industry to run our daily lives has ruined the Domestic industry and the American Work Ethos. The immigrants are not the cause of the greed cancer that has consumed the USA, they are just the easy excuse; The mirror is the simplest way to see the root of the problem.

    Reflect – Reform – Rebuild RRR over KKK!!!!

  10. elvis
    May 10, 2008 at 8:14 am

    2.10 an hour plus tips working as a 14-year old working in a restaurant bussing tables, before I left I got to move up to cook at 3.25 an hour and I thought I was in hog heaven. when I was in my later teens 5.00 an hour was considered awesome and I most certainly worked my butt off for every penny of it. These days some jobs kids are in pay twice as much and it seems they do less than twice the work, interesting.

  11. michael
    May 10, 2008 at 10:17 am

    I totally disagree about the teenager argument. Some teens don’t have a work ethic, some do, just like some did and some didn’t when we were teens. What’s different is the environment they must compete in now. Most teenage jobs are also the jobs “illegal” adults want, as they are desperate for any type of work at any pay level people are willing to pay (and thus exploit their illegal status). If you remove the “illegal aliens”, the “legal” teens that want to work will have more job opportunities (ever looked at the inner cities teens job market?), and “legal” adults will be able to compete with in-sensitive greedy business managers by demanding at least a legal minimum wax of $8.01/hour (its going up on a recent federal mandate).

    $10.00/hour is a smaller number than a 10% annual growth rate of $2.00 over 20 years, about $13.40 and over 40 years close to a $30.00 wage equivalent. It is not enough to say I got $1.00 or $2.00/per hour in 1970 or 1990, but you have to understand what that bought you for your 8 hours of wages. Today’s 8 hour wages will not buy anything near what the same 8 hour’s wages bought 20 years or even 40 years ago in 1970. I would not be as happy with $8.00 hour in today’s wage compared to yesterdays 4.95/hour miniumum wage. The country is going broke with a $9 Trillion dollar deficit, uncontrollable and unreasonable population growth, and significantly reduced funding for technical innovation, while we break the federal treasury bank with increased socialist economy spending bills and wartime un-funded budget committments.

  12. michael
    May 10, 2008 at 10:38 am

    This news peice is simply showing how an economy adjusts to a shift in labor force, wage scale and worker location. It won’t take long for these jobs to be filled with legal people, at higher wages, and the entire community will benefit from that higher wage scale. The only people that will not benefit immediately are the mill owners. What do you think happened in Pittsburg, when the mimimum wage industry was removed? It modernized, relocated industries and changed tactics to produce more wealth and make it the beautiful city it is today. These industries, will move to countries they can exploit the labor wage gap in, improve the economies of those countries while keeping the employees in poverty (which is what this Mill was doing). Waht will replace them is more technically advanced industries that can compete and pay higher wages to the community. THAT is call “innovation” rather than “exploitation”. The same thing happened when we abolished child labor and removed that wage exploitation. Those factoories could not find any 12 year olds to work the mills or mines, and lost income, complained, bitched at the government, and tried to show how their industry was going to fail if they could not hire those 12 year olds. What replaced it was Unions demanding higher wages, the mills and mines innovated, and eventually were replaced with “the jobs you all have today that pay those wages you like today to EVERYONE in your community. I don’t sympathize with those mill owners at all, the people of Arizona will see an increase in economic growth in 5 years if they stay the course to follow the law and pay “living wages”. Tempory workers visas (we have always had those) are just that, temporary, just like Canada is doing with the Mexican consulate. he problem with that is the exploitation of the worker again, rathen than paying a “legal” resident, protect by US LAW a legal living wage, rather than ecploit a foreign. worker. None of you realize it but the US is grossly exploited Chinese workers to maintain YOUR current level of high living standard. When China Stops this worker exploitation with labor laws, we will become poorer, but re;ly more on our own people for wealth like Europe. The US is going to become a lot more like European village economies in about 20 years if we don’t control population growth.

  13. rod2155
    May 10, 2008 at 6:31 pm

    OK so there was this announcement on the RestonWeb chat board that due to an influx in foreclosed properties many lawns have outgrown the limits set by charter, and upon the residents being, well, on the curb, the town will be forced to mow many of the lawns at taxpayer expense (this is not correct, because the banks that are holding the properties should foot the bill) …

    http://restonweb.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3817

    …Then it hit me, a chance for all you parents who say your teenagers are being denied their right to work due to the illegal immigrants to prove their worth.

    Here me out, this is not a snide joke!

    I think if these kids want to prove themselves here is a golden opportunity, and listen up PWC, because this same situation will probably happen in your neighborhoods this summer. Go to the town council and ask them to strike up a deal where the town will pay an organization of citizen teens to mow the lawns of foreclosed properties AT THE BANK’S EXPENSE.

    This would be wonderful for many reasons…

    1. It will be a service to our country, by citizens, in a time of need.
    2. It would look great on a kids resume.
    3. It will teach these kids the value of their government and will promote a healthy work ethos
    4. County services won’t have the extra burden of mowing private properties this summer.
    5. If money is being drawn from taxation, then parents can rest assured that their money is being re-invested into the future of the county and into helping American Citizens.
    6. It will give good summer employment to these kids.
    7. It will show that American kids can work just as hard as the Illegal immigrants.

    Now I would be curious to see who will rail against this idea and why. I have seen so many people complain about the Immigration issue, NOW it’s time to put your money where your mouth is and take this small, hardworking, but patriotic step to reforming our kids and brighten our future.

    Otherwise be silent and let the better worker do the job, legal or illegal…it’s just wages for national apathy or hypocrisy

  14. michael
    May 10, 2008 at 7:49 pm

    Excellent Idea Rod! I will call and make my voice heard on this wonderful idea.

  15. rod2155
    May 10, 2008 at 7:59 pm

    I mentioned this on the Herndon Web, and already I have people saying that the Town Contracts would be violated and there would be insurance issues.

    Herndon has a New Council, MAKE NEW CONTRACTS!!!! This is a crisis and the red tape must be cut along with the grass. heh heh, this is a Patriotic “Grass roots” issue.

    Who here had workers insurance when they were 16 and mowing lawns?!?! Who needed that insurance when they lost a leg or an arm in accident? Sure the risk is their, but it is by far outweighed by the risks of holding our children’s future back due to bureaucratic red tape.

    As I said on the Herndon Board, we use so much breath in bitching about our quality of life, can’t we just draw one in fighting for it? and in a positive way!

    “Grass-Roots Landscaping” Helping make the American dream a reality!

    Let’s see what the politicians say….

  16. Ruby
    May 11, 2008 at 9:39 am

    rod2155, 10. May 2008, 18:31
    PWC faced the problem with the tall grass last year. Therefore, they are much better prepared this year. The county attaches a lien to the property for all of those yards that must be mowed by the county or a contractor. The lien is $450 for a residential subdivision lot.

    The problem with kids mowing these lawns is they would be trespassing, and the same is true for any good samaritan willing to do this. I have had good luck by calling the real estate agents that have for sale signs, and so have several of my neighbors. Over the last week in my neighborhood and the surrounding ones I’ve seen about 30 properties finally get mowed. Then there’s the problem with the houses that are not listed with real estate agents and are bank owned and/or abandonded. This requires zoning to start tracking down the owners. This is creating a new kind of burden on our zoning office.

  17. Elena
    May 11, 2008 at 10:40 pm

    Imagine that, the prediction by so many economists and immigration experts is actually true. Illegal immigrants do play a vital role in our economy. Now, when, I ask, when, do we accept this reality and incorporate it into an updated comprehensive immigration reform package! What are people so afraid of! Seriously, we have had muliple examples of economy’s that are negatatively impacted when illegal immigrants and legal immigrants leave, and Arizona is just one microcosym, how many more examples do people need to see before we start seeing the truth? All this talk about integration of different cultures into American society will happen much quicker once people have a required path to legalization.

  18. michael
    May 12, 2008 at 6:35 pm

    People do have a required path to legalization. And have had it for a long time. That is called applying for a permanent resident card. Illegal immigrants do not play a vital role in our economy, “legal” immigrants do. When you sneak across the border or overstay your legal work, or tourists visa, you are no longer playing a vital role in our community, you are playing a destructuve role, one most obvious now in our current foreclosue crisis and drain on our social welfare system and medical service and educational resources.
    When unreasonable growth is controlled by a legal immigration system, then we have reaonable impacts on our econony and a reasonable chance to keep up with those changes. If we continue to allow lawbreaking to circumvent this control of reasonable growth, let the current lawbreakers stay, and you end up with the crisis we have now only worse in 10 years, and you will still be fighting liberal social engineering people who will always want to simply absorb the lawbreakers (whatever the economic cost and cost to our national identity). That path will lead nowhere but to the destruction of our national identity, laws, and weakening of our economy, as it has been for the past 20 years.

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