As I drive around the Philly suburbs, I see a lot of people doing lawnwork. Most of the people doing the lawnwork are Latino. I don’t know how many of them are here in this country without documents, but I imagine that some of the lawn care companies don’t bother checking the status of their employees. Perhaps others are duped by fake documents. The main thing, though, is that I don’t think many homeowners care one way or the other. They want their lawns mowed, and they want a good price. That’s why there is nothing particularly alarming about the fact that Mitt Romney had undocumented workers taking care of his lawn. That’s hardly an unusual situation.
But that’s why the Republicans’ stance on immigration is so obnoxious. Remember the spectacle of Meg Whitman saying that the maid she employed for years should be deported? There is something really wrong with knowingly hiring undocumented servants and then turning on them and saying they should be thrown out of the country.
If you really care about undocumented workers, you certainly shouldn’t employ them. And then to go around the country saying that people who employ undocumented workers should be punished? That reminds me of all the politicians who support drug laws that would have landed them in jail when they were teenagers.
People are buzzing about Rick Perry’s decision to call Mitt Romney a hypocrite on immigration in last night’s debate. It’s a cynical attack from Perry, but it’s a valid criticism. You can be sure that the Obama campaign will mention Romney’s hypocrisy, so it’s an issue the Republican voters need to discuss. It’s a weakness in the record of their frontrunner.
The problem isn’t that Romney, like countless other Americans, had undocumented workers tending to his lawn. The problem is that he has no respect for the people who tended his lawn. The problem is that he wants to use them as a political punching bag.
The problem is that he has no respect for the people who tended his lawn. The problem is that he wants to use them as a political punching bag.
Doesn’t that go for pretty much all politicians? The political punching bag part.
He knew damn well they were being paid slave wages, and he continued to employe the company. The issue is exploitation of immigrant labor which he is guilty of. And that’s an issue I’ve been waiting to hear addressed by Occupy Wall Street and its labor supporters.
well, the wage issue is an important one, too. Frankly, it’s an issue few people want to face. Did you follow the controversy in Georgia this year when the state passed a law that scared away all the farm workers and they couldn’t find anyone to pick the fruit in the fields?
It’s a complicated issue.
Alabama got hit with a similar scenario.
So, basically, your position is that it’s good that we can get people here doing jobs for really low wages. What that means is that you are in favor of really low wage jobs.
That’s a really progressive position. Let’s have a lot of jobs that pay almost nothing, and let’s get in people who will do the work for almost nothing.
Yep, I can hear the old union guys cheering for you already: CRAPPY JOBS ARE REALLY CRAPPY WAGES!! SOLIDARITY FOREVER.
that’s what you got out of this piece?
That’s interesting.
There is a big issue and a little issue.
The big issue is that we have an economy (particularly in agriculture, but also in lawn care) that relies on cheap labor.
The small issue is that Mitt Romney hired a company that used cheap labor.
It’s kind of like marijuana laws. It’s a big deal that we have Mexican drug gangs chopping off people’s heads.
It’s a small deal that a politician smoked a joint in college.
I’m not saying that cheap labor isn’t a problem, but the issue here is hypocrisy.
More like: a politician who smoked a joint in college is also supporting draconian drug laws which, in turn, provide for drug gangs. Imo, the worst of it isn’t personal hypocrisy, but a murderous cultural environment that makes it inevitable.
At least the republican candidates are talkiing about the immigration issue (in a fairly stupid way to be sure). There are many issues here aside from hypocrisy of repub. candidates or the over-reliance in some industries on cheap labor. Fat cats don;t just want cheap labor, they want slave labor — people who have no right to complain about poor working conditions, people who can be exploited and replaced, with no medical or other benefits. Union busting, under-regulation of industry, outsourcing, its all part and parcel of the same thing. I have lived in third world countries where the elite treat workers this way, and that is where this country is headed. Middle class Americans have for the most part played along with this immoral system for too long, not realizing that that they are contributing to their own decline. You bought as house, nice, good for you. Now cut your own damn lawn, or be prepared to pay someone a decent wage to do it for you!
Well, yes.
But, you know, if I decide to have someone come and rake up our leaves (we live in the woods, and it’s a huge job) and I open the Yellow Pages and arrange for that to happen, the chances are good that some undocumented people will show up to do it. If that’s me going along with an exploitative system, that’s fair on one level, I guess. But it’s putting the burden on me, not the employer.
This isn’t strictly about cheap labor. It’s too pervasive to be all about the price of labor.
We say that in Georgia this summer. When they chased all the undocumented workers out of the state, they couldn’t find anyone to do the work.
So, yeah, when I consume Georgia’s produce, I’m complicit in the system, but it’s not as simple as letting Americans do the work, or the price famers are willing to pay for labor.
<it> But it’s putting the burden on me, not the employer.</it>
I agree that the chief burden should be on the employer to obey the law and not hire illegals, to the detriment of American workers. I would not advocate that customers should be acting like cops, trying to enforce the laws on our own. But we need to get some momentum going toward creating a fairer labor market. Why should our poor be competing against the poor of another country for work? Talking about the problems, raising public consciousness on the issues, is one way to get the ball rolling, so thanks for hosting this discussion.
Leaves need to be raked or leaf-blown out of the way and disposed of. That is a given.
But are our “poor people” (your words) really willing to go out and rake leaves on-demand as the customers of these yard maintenance firms require?
No. They are not.
Yard maintenance firms have little choice but to hire hard-working Mexicans to do the work that needs to be done, just as farmers need to do. Why? Because American citizens (no matter how poor) consider themselves to be “above that kind of work.”
Our poor people should not be competing with others making less than minimum wage. So we shouldn’t allow any employer to pay less than minimum waqe to anyone, even illegals. But the only way to enforce this would to make those “illegals” LEGAL tax-paying workers (either citizens or legally registered guest-workers.) Ya think?
It used to be that roofing was done by Americans. They were not above that work. Today, it’s very hard to find an American-only crew. Why? Roofing companies have lowered wages to the point that the illegals will accept the work, while Americans will not do it.
We recently fixed up our house to sell it. We employed, over the 1.25 year that it took to do it, about 30 different guys – a window guy, a carpenter, tile, ceiling plaster, kitchen demo, etc etc etc. I used only Americans, because I would get names from the Americans. The Americans do NOT like the illegals, because they know DAMN good and well that the illegals are here to steal the work. We did not pay union scale. We simply negotiated a rate for each job, and got several bids, except on some. Now, the carpet install was probably illegal labor, but we didn’t have much option there. But I tried very hard to employ no illegals.
There is NOTHING wrong with roofing. I have done it myself. My kids and I roofed part of our house and the garage. In IL, no AZ, and the heat wasn’t a huge issue. But these jobs are and were done by Americans, until the huge influx of illegals has come in. They were done by Americans. They will be again.
I advocate issuing temporary work visas for agricultural and maybe a few other industries. But NOT construction. That is a field where Americans WANT to work but are driven out by illegal labor willing to work for less money. Also NOT for meat-packing (butcher) work. Americans DO want that work and we used to even have butcher unions, I think. No reason we shouldn’t have them again.
But Americans really are NOT willing to pick the crops in the fields. Look at Georgia and Alabama after their harsh immigration laws went into effect. The crops literally rotted in the fields because no out-of-work American citizens wanted to do the work.
I can only imagine how bad things would get if California scared their illegal immigrant labor away. We would all starve. No good fruit (which must be hand-picked) and lettuce, strawberries, etc.
Let’s make them legal to work (in agriculture) on a temp basis and cross the border freely and pay taxes.
I would be in favor of a work visa for this area of crop picking. I 100% agree on construction and meat-packing. In a number of cases, ICE raids on meat packing plants resulted in the plants’ changing wage scales, and VOILA many locals worked there. It was a wage issue, not anything else. If there is a low-wage supply of workers, you will be able to get away with low-wages.
We used to have the “bracero” system, which was eliminated in the 50s. I have no idea why.
The “Bracero” system is basically what I’m thinking of. Let them come and go (and drive with a license and insurance) freely, so long as they pay taxes on their earnings and only work in the industries specified in their work visa.
And we need to hold the employers accountable as well. They must pay at least minimum wage but the workers can negotiate anything they want above that level. Medical care must be covered somehow for this temporary immigrant worker. Not sure how that should work, but it needs to be resolved.
Taxes should be charged at a flat rate and forwarded by the employer to the IRS so the foreign worker never needs to file any type of tax return.
There also needs to be a government agency that will take the employer-related complaints of any immigrant worker seriously and actually resolve them so employers don’t exploit immigrants in any way, as they do now.
As far as legalizing, that is an option IF we have a labor shortage. We have a job shortage. We have 10% unemployment. Why in the name of god should we legalize millions to compete with our poor?
Because deporting them is inhumane, impractical, and will reduce our GDP and decrease funding for SS.
“No. They are not.”
RandyH, that’s a pretty sweeping statement. I think it would be fairer to say that there is some elasticity in the supply of American workers, and that if wages and benefits in these sort of manual labor jobs were better, more American workers would be willing to do them.
Would that mean that some people would no longer be able to afford having their yard work done? Yes, and too f’ing bad. You know what? I would like to see ALL these jobs UNIONIZED, with decent wages and benefits. Yes, including farm workers! THAT’s a progressive position. Would it mean a higher price for lettuce? Again, yes, and too f’ing bad. It’s time we stopped treating manual laborers like crap in this country.
Okay. You’re angry. I get that. Really. But come back to earth. The American standard of living really has raised to a level where we are not willing to pick strawberries or lettuce at any price. It’s HARD WORK! Very hard work.
You could unionize it and that would be great. But almost all of your members f that union would be Mexican immigrants who (I would hope) have some legal work permit to be here.
I love strawberries, grapes, lettuce, melons and all sorts of stuff that, even during a depression like we’re feeling now, we can’t get American citizens to pick AT ANY PRICE. These “illegals” are being paid VERY WELL right now to do these jobs because no one else will do the work. They just won’t. The work is too hard.
Sorry.
I’m not angry, I just use caps sometimes! There may be some jobs where there are not enough Americans to go around. I don’t think gardening, meat packing and roofing are among them (to name three examples from previous posts). You may be right for agricultural workers, in some cases. I was saying what I would like to see in my ideal world: strong labor unions to shield all these workers from exploitation
I agree that strong labor unions are the answer. But the workers need to be here in some legal context in order to form those unions. We need agricultural workers and they should be legally employed and they should form unions. But Americans won’t do the work. I have no issue with foreign workers forming unions in America (a la Cesar Chavez) but they need to be here with permission, paying taxes and deserving of legal protection from exploitation and abuse from their employer.
Different regions will have different needs for foreign workers and they should identify where they are needed. Once the foreign workers are issued valid work visas, they definitely should unionize and demand the best wages and benefits that their employers can pay.
This is a genuinely radical statement, and observations like these are why I read this blog.
I suppose then we need to start looking at concrete actions to produce as many relationships in our society based on respect as possible. Capitalism will have to go.
what’s radical about it?
Take this I hope as the compliment I intend. One of your most endearing qualities as a writer is that you seem to be unaware of your radicalism. Radical, as in to the root, rather than on one end of a spectrum.
That you name the fundamental problem as one of human dignity rather than an (admittedly important) single issue is radical. We have a social system that divides, you propose a unifying principle. We have an economy for which growth is the defining virtue, you propose human dignity. Nothing could be more radically negative, in a Hegelian sense (to drop the name).
My old man is a Kansas farm boy born in the Depression, and personally conservative in his habits though a touch left of center in his politics. We were talking about inheritance and I said I didn’t think that wealth should be able to be inherited. He said, well, I don’t know. I said, Dad, if you knew I would always have health care and a place to live, and food to eat, would you think that? He said, “absolutely not.” Basic decency is very radical in the US if one follows its implications thoroughly.
Well, I don’t really see the radicalism of it. You sit there in your house while people mow your lawn and then you go around the country bad-mouthing them and trying to score political points at their expense. The problem is with the person who does this as much as the policy he’s espousing. He has contempt for people, but he’s not above utilizing their services.
Kinda like having contempt for ‘the government’, but taking federal aid.
I’m coming to the conclusion that what’s said at these debates is strictly for entertainment purposes. It’s like professional wrestling.
The unfortunate thing is that it looks so real.
I agree with this: we need to start looking at concrete actions to produce as many relationships in our society based on respect as possible.
However, I disagree regarding your last statement. Respect and capitalism are not anathema to each other.
For example, there are certain companies that I will simply no longer deal with because I felt that they did not respect me, or appreciate my business. This (ostensibly) hurts their bottom line.
On the other hand, there are companies with which I am extremely loyal, because I feel like they make a good product and treat me well. Ask BooMan about his Apple product fetish if you want other examples of that.
Part of the problem is that a lot of people don’t see their wallets as a weapon, and are not conscientious about how they spend their money. Compounding the issue is that many people in our country are so financially deprived that they have no choice but to buy from whomever is offering the cheapest product. This allows the growth of the large conglomerate corporations who do not care about their customers, and who then can afford either through acquisition or other tactics to push their competitors out of the marketplace, leaving little choice.
In my opinion, that outcome is not the eventuality of a strong capitalist system, but of one that is falling apart. A strong system would be based on mutual respect between the producer and the consumer.
ej, I’m one of those who would seem to ‘have no choice but to buy from whomever is offering the cheapest product.’
I work on an exchange system; I make no money. Therefore I have no credit card or bank account. Occasionally I have cash, as a gift.
When I have money, I also have a choice. I make my choice according to what I believe. It’s important enough to me to do that.
I get things second-hand, generally as donations. The last thing I bought new was an iMac, in 2001. When I had money to spend I shopped at thrift stores.The store run by Habitat for Humanity in Asheville, NC was my favorite.
There are always choices. The problem isn’t lack of choices, but a desire for the stuff they sell you on tv.
yeah, you have choices, but not on everything.
If you go into the black neighborhoods of Philly, the grocery stores are horrendous. There’s hardly any produce, and what there is is wilted and total crap. The corner stores are worse. It’s a real challenge to eat healthy. And it costs a lot of money because you have to travel to find decent food.
Meanwhile, we belong to a CSA that is only a seven or eight minute drive away. We get fresh access to pesticide-free vegetables for eight months of the year, with an option for fruit and cheese. It’s not even that expensive, if you consider what they charge for a red pepper or tomato in the supermarket.
The truth is being poor doesn’t just limit your choices, but it endangers your health. People should support urban agriculture.
Totally agreed. Before I moved to the mountains I lived mainly in pre-gentrification ‘slum’ neighborhoods in NYC, so I know. Where I live now is somewhat similar to what those were like — no grocery stores at all for about 45 miles; what’s offered at the little local markets is sub-standard. We have a local CSA, but the membership fees are still a little prohibitive. They’re going for the urban weekender/vacation home owner, as do so many new businesses here, ignoring the rural poor.
Fortunately many of us have gardens & exchange produce, or sell very reasonably. Naturally, this is mainly seasonal. We’ve moved away from home preservation, for the most part, for many reasons. We’ve moved from self-sufficiency on so many levels.
It’s shameful.
The cooperative model needs to be expanded & styled for our various communities. Absolutely.
& yes, being poor is very bad for your health. I can attest to that as well.
The biggest problem with being poor & making good choices regards food. Food stamps don’t go very far. What I try to do is stay away from the big agribusiness brands. I also eat less than the average American — like most folks on Earth.
I agree that it’s an attack that Obama campaign will use. But I also expect that “outside” groups will increase their “Obama’s aunt and uncle are illegal immigrants so Obama’s a hypocrite…” meme that Michelle Bachmann tried to latch on to last night.
If you really care about undocumented workers, you certainly shouldn’t employ them.
Substitute ‘the poor’ for ‘undocumented workers’.
I may be dense, but please explain.
if you are bothered by them. sloppy sentence structure on my part.
OK, got it. It didn’t occur to me that someone would be bothered by them to that degree.
And apparently, they’re not.
Honestly, when I was a homeowner, I hired a group of amazing guys to re-do my front yard. They installed a new modern sprinkler system, did some masonry work, planted a new lawn from seed, removed a few dying trees from my yard and my old-lady-neighbor’s yards and just did fantastic work. I paid them very well for their work (more than $10/hr for each of them) and the neighborhood celebrated this beautiful re-created end of the street. I think it cost me a couple thousand dollars and it was totally worth it.
But I knew the group of guys were all illegals. This did not bother me. This was a time when the economy was roaring along and you could pick up teams of illegal workers in front of any Home Depot store. (I didn’t get them there. They came recommended from a friend.) No one cared because most white people who wanted to work had jobs. And that’s about it.
Anyway, they did a great job and I doubt VERY much that I could have found a team of white guys to do a better job at ten times the price. And they happily helped my old-lady-neighbor out with her dead or dying tree problem for no charge. They not only cut trees down, but actually dug up the root system with pick-axes and hauled the waste away.
These guys were the best and it bothered me that they couldn’t get some kind of guest-worker visa and driver’s license because everyone depended on them to do this kind of work and they were so happy to do it.
Most of the illegals were peasant farmers driven broke by NAFTA’s cheap US corn. Think “Grapes of Wrath”. Working on a farm is hard physical labor and these small three acre peasant farms are much like European farms in the Middle Ages, agonizing back breaking toil. From their stand point, making $10 an hour in Los Estados Unidos for labor that is familiar and not as hard as they were used to is great. It’s the familiar common immigrant experience. I only hope they got all the money and a lion’s share didn’t go to an organizer. I’m with you on the guest visa program. Entrepreneurs like this should benefit from them, not giant agribusiness.
These guys were all family members. Brothers, cousins, etc. And they had different guys for each part of the job, according to their specialty. They probably sent at least half of the money back to their families in Mexico and they were not run by pimps. One of them spoke really good English and arranged the jobs. They were very busy with business. In fact it took weeks to get them for my project after contacting them because they had so much business.
I was so uninitiated that when they first started working, I went to write him a check. He said “Maybe you don’t know yet, but when you hire guys like us you really need to pay cash.” I felt so dumb! So I went to the bank and got cash to pay them.
To me, this was back-breaking work that I could never do. To them, it was EASY work and they felt they were being over-paid.
Yep, I think they may have had it much worse back home on farms destroyed by NAFTA. But the reason I call for a guest-worker program is that they didn’t want the “path to US citizenship” we hear so much about in political circles. They just wanted a job. They would ideally spend half the year working in “Estados Unidos” doing this back-breaking work we hate so much and then spend the other half in Mexico sitting poolside with their families. But they should be able to cross the border legally and with legitimate identification in order to do it.
RandyH –the law of supply and demand would imply that hiring illegals has the effect of depressing the wages of other workers in that industry. Would you have been willing to pay more in order to ensure that American workers got the job? I’m interested in what you think the effect of hiring illegals has on the American working class.
Are you implying that we have an obligation to hire Mexican immigrants because Nafta hurt the Mexican farm economy? If so, I would remind you that many American workers have also been displaced by these free trade deals.
I hear you and understand where you are coming from. You must realize that at the time, we were at or near full employment of citizens and there was huge demand for additional laborers. This was like 2003 I think.
We ought to be in a situation where we are welcoming immigrant labor again. If our “ownership class” would just re-invest in American ingenuity once again, we would all need immigrant labor to do our landscaping and fruit picking and such because we citizens would all be busy working again.
But I want to note that not all Mexicans want to become American citizens just to work here. They need work to support their families and we need the workers. Just give them some legal way to do it where they are not exploited by Coyotes and other criminal types in order to do their honest work. Ideally there ought to be an immigration deal with Mexico where we offer work visas to Mexicans to work only in agriculture and landscaping, etc that allows them a drivers license and the right to cross the border legally whenever they want. They could negotiate with their employers and they would never be paid less than minimum wage. They would be able to report employers who try to exploit them. This visa would also provide a taxpayer ID number that all employers would be required to take a flat-rate tax from wages and submit to the IRS. And the immigrant employee would be able to verify that the taxes are actually being paid in each week and report any crooked employers who might be pocketing the withholding. Real simple.
But just because times are tough right now, don’t think we don’t need immigrant labor. We desperately need it because white and black Americans are not willing to work in the fields. That’s just a fact. And as the baby-boom generation retires, we are going to need even more workers since the later generations are not having enough babies. Take a look at the long view. We need immigrants and temporary immigrant labor.
It’s like the guys who laid the tile in my crawl space. They had a pickup truck with their company name, business cards, and were registered with Menard’s. Two young guys worked all day on their knees for $250. No exploitation, my wife asked for a quote, they looked at the job, and said $250. No argument from my wife, “the Senora”, they kept calling her. She wondered if I was mad because I planned to do the job myself. I said, “Hell no! I’ll just work an extra day of overtime and that will pay for it. I’d much rather be servicing my postal machines (a job I can do in my sleep by now) than spend a lot more time than these guys did wrestling with sheet vinyl on my knees.
Had to rush and forgot the point. They wanted cash, no checks, also. We compromised by giving them a check made out to “Cash”.
1.) We need to fix our immigration system. It’s a mess, it isn’t fair, it’s unnecessarily bureaucratic, and it takes far too long to become a citizen.
2.) Americans are going to have to accept increased food prices in some way — either because of the immigrants no longer doing the work of slaves for little pay and replacing them with citizens with higher wages, or ending our agriculture subsidies.
Having said that:
a.) The influx is going down and on this front the “problem” is fixing itself.
b.) Immigration is indirectly related to our drug policies. It’s the same as the influx in Arab immigration in Europe. A lot of these people are refugees of our Drug War.
c.) Fix Mexico’s economy. But their economy can never be fixed so long as the war on drugs continues.
It all comes back to the drug war. No one talks about this, though. They’d rather hate on the Brown People. Bachmann’s racism really got to me last night. I don’t know why; I’m used to the Republicans being racist, especially on this issue. Perhaps it’s because I’ve been teaching for the past two weeks and I’ve put faces on these kids. “English as the official language” talk just makes me sick. I had about 10 Latinos in my class today, they didn’t speak English the entire class. Yet they did their work just like everyone else. What’s wrong with that?
It’s a combination of the farm price system which is export oriented (so that the American farmer gets paid and the mexican farmer loses) and the drug issue.
Yes, exactly.
I agree with you in general.
However, we need to legalize and regulate the distribution of drugs (yes, pot and cocaine, etc.) This should take care of the “Drug War.” We should also tell Calderon (prez of Mexico) that if he doesn’t stop the battles in his own country’s cities, that we will find a way to remove him from power. By force, if necessary. He is doing no good to his country by making his “drug war” into a military battle in his own cities.
And then there is the immigration issue. We need to stop thinking of Mexicans as wanting American citizenship. Just stop it. So many of them DO NOT want citizenship. They just want the legal right to rake our leaves, mow our lawns, clean our hotel rooms, pick our fruit, etc LEGALLY – as a temp job. Then they want to go back home for a while LEGALLY and see their families who live in Mexico. They don’t mind paying taxes but if they have to live illegally, taxes don’t exist.
So that’s where it is. But we insist on making it something else in our public discussions of the issues.
If there is anything that is quintessentially American it is our rejection of “Americans are going to have to accept” – ask Jimmy Carter. “Should accept” or “Will eventually be imposed upon” maybe, but “Americans are going to have to accept”? Not gonna happen – not ‘Muricans…