Ricochet is the best place on the internet to discuss the issues of the day, either through commenting on posts or writing your own for our active and dynamic community in a fully moderated environment. In addition, the Ricochet Audio Network offers over 50 original podcasts with new episodes released every day.
Are Our Immigration “Policies” Basically Affirmative Action for Lazy People?
This is not a post about illegal immigration (so calm down. lol). This is a gripe about the limitations imposed by the nonsense that is our current immigration system. I have always thought that as an employer I should hire the most qualified people available, regardless of race, gender, or whatever. That is the smart as well as correct thing to do.
One of the best ways to differentiate your company from others that provide similar services is by having the best people working for you. This is getting harder and harder to do because we are all hiring out of the same limited labor pool. I fundamentally oppose affirmative action in the workplace or in education and it’s starting to feel to me that our convoluted immigration system is pretty much an affirmative action program for the country at large, specifically unqualified and/or lazy people.
When I have commented in the past about the difficulties of hiring qualified people that are willing to work manual labor jobs, regardless of pay, there are many good-intentioned suggestions that we should check into hiring paroled criminals, people living in halfway houses and rehab centers, busing in and housing people from other parts of the country, etc., etc.
So, basically instead of hiring qualified, hardworking, skilled, ambitious immigrants, I should bend over backward to hire people whose only qualification may be their citizenship. In my view that seems more like stupidity than patriotism.
Published in General
Great post, thanks. I was very heartened to see President Trump approve the additional 15,000 temporary visas for seasonal workers, which seems like the best, pro-business move at this juncture.
@pilli I know a stone mason who has a similar story to yours – he finally learned enough Spanish to hire his own (legal) immigrant crew (and then started a Spanish language Bible study with them and got them hooked into his church – it’s quite a story).
A good percentage of our work crews are Hispanic. We pay carpenters more than $20 an hour. Is that cheap labor? We hire Hispanics because most of the natives who apply fail the drug test, and not all that many apply. Concrete is hard work.
So, someone please explain to me why I went to college? $20 an hour is pretty good pay even in the white-collar cubicle land that I inhabit. If I had known that right out of high school I could make over $40K a year as a concrete finisher, I wouldn’t have bothered getting my bachelor’s degree of apparently dubious value. I am thinking now not just of myself, but all the other college grads working jobs in cubicle-ville for way less than $40K a year. All that time we thought we went to college because we were so smart. Turns out we were just certifiably stupid.
We have an equipment operator who makes $70k/year.
Aaaaahhhhhrrrrggggg!!! (Sets bachelor degree on fire while lamenting wasted life in Office Space horrorscape.)
This guy probably doesn’t make $70k/year:
Yep he was, didn’t make him less right.
So sarcasm aside….IF you have ever witnessed something like that instead of reading about it in an Ann Coulter book it definitely wasn’t any kind of legitimate commercial construction company. I’ve never seen that in my life but maybe you are in a different part of the country? Anyway, that would be called “day laborers” where people are paying someone cash to work for the day. That’s nothing like what I’m talking about.
So I guess you are aware that “open borders” means no checks, no border, anyone moves back and forth at will. Go ahead and evaluate me by that standard. See if I have ever advocated such a thing cause I haven’t. We E-Verify every applicant that comes in the door, we have worked with Homeland Security to track down people with false documents when they busted an ID Mill, we constantly have crews go through TBI/FBI and god knows whatever background checks for projects we are on. So yeah, look at it through the lense of illegal immigration too.
All for it. Fear of starvation is a great motivator to work.
This is where you show that you don’t know what you’re talking about. I’ve said this until I’m blue in the face. IT IS NOT ABOUT WAGES. There are no cheap crews from Mexico….not doing what I do. It’s an employee’s market right now and wages are way up. I would say on average the Hispanic guys that work for us definitely have higher wages than the non-Hispanic.
I’m patriotic toward my country, that doesn’t apply to a generic “American worker”. I’m good to my employees and reward those that work hard. I don’t give a crap about those that are too lazy to even try.
Yeah I have a slight hope that this administration could actually make targeted reforms to the system that other administrations couldn’t do because Trump has so much cred on the issue.
That’s in a nutshell the theory behind our recruiting efforts in local high schools as well as construction programs in colleges. I don’t believe kids have any idea there is a good way to make a living without going into debt to pay for a degree that may or may not help you. I also believe in Mike Rowe’s campaign to remove the stigma from “work” instead of telling kids all throughout school to try and avoid work.
I’ve lived in or around NYC for most of my life, so I’ve seen day laborers. I’ve done a lot of physical labor in my life. If there are jobs out there that can’t be filled “regardless of pay”, I’m on my way.
I remember Laura Ingraham doing a segment on an article that claimed that a company could not find American workers even though they were offering something like fifty dollars an hour. Then some of her listeners started calling the company to express interest in those positions. They stopped answering the phone.
Why would I object to your hiring Hispanics. I object to your hiring illegals or those with patently phony documentation. I hire Hispanics in southern CO whose families have been in the region for nearly 400 years.
Honestly, I think I stated that if your market is dominated by such a labor force, there really is little you can do, but trading in cheap slanders of American workers is not something you need to do.
By the way, why are we punching down here? Why only a free market for you? I’ve hired dozens of concrete contractors. Let’s get rid of state, county and municipal (yes, even municipal throughout Colorado) licensure, absurd bonding and insurance requirements.
Let’s get rid of planning commission, town council and town manager verbal deals to keep subcontracts local.
Let me hire the crew and the contractor from Mexico then.
There are plenty of contractors out there who cannot pass a urine test or are driving on suspended licenses or have to found by searching the casinos, too.
Sorry, but if you title a post in such an insulting manner, you get some push back.
I don’t think know much at all about our company or employees so what do you base this assumption on?
Hell I thought it was a clever title, plus exactly how I was feeling at the moment….
Does anybody else think this conversation reminds them of a certain scene from The Simpsons?
I never used the term “regardless of pay” and at the same time I’m not talking about day laborers working for cash. If people don’t apply for a position it seems illogical the reason for that is the wage isn’t high enough since they don’t know what the pay rate is.
Great post, Concretevol.
There’s one huge element missing in every conversation about cheap immigrant labor: the American consumer.
In the end, the entire phenomenon of hiring cheaper foreign labor comes down to the American consumer’s insatiable appetite for more stuff of the same quality at cheaper prices. Welfare or not, it’s nearly impossible for American workers to provide the same quality at the same price as immigrant labor (or workers in foreign factories) who are accustomed to lower costs/standards of living.
Someone above mentioned that you could find qualified American labor if you were just willing to go high enough with your wages. True enough, but the next question is: how would society react if the cost a two-car garage suddenly tripled? The construction market would obviously tank, but more importantly, consumers would start complaining about how expensive the cost of living was becoming.
Look what happens every time grocery prices go up by a few percentage points: people start telling their elected officials to do something. Do we really think American voters would tolerate the increase in grocery prices that would result from eliminating black market labor?
As great as the problem of low-skilled American workers addicted to opioids may be, the problem of American consumers being addicted to flat-screen TVs, two-car garages, and going out to eat twice a week is even greater.
If we could eliminate all minimum wages and other mandates, like Obmacare, OHSA rules we could hire most of the people who are trapped in crime, drugs and unemployment. Business would still bear high costs of turnover and training, but gradually people would learn to work, business would find better ways to identify and train new workers. We have done this to them and to ourselves. We’d still have to go to immigration to fill high skilled and technical jobs but not until the economy was roaring along and until we discovered how to pull our people into better training and education. Markets work. Government doesn’t but sometimes some of the things it does are necessary. Setting wage rates, regulating safety, telling people what kind of insurance they should buy are not among the things government is capable of doing.
My only disagreement with you is the term “cheap foreign labor”. I concede that may possibly be the case in agriculture or landscaping, but in our situation trying to find “cheap labor” doesn’t enter into the equation. You merely try to get qualified people at or above market wages. Other than that quibble, you are spot on with your basic point. Any variation in cost has to be reflected in pricing so yeah, you could pay carpenters $75 per hour but either everyone does that and labor triples causing every project to suddenly be over budget, or an individual company increases their costs only and shortly goes out of business because they cease winning bids.
More than minimum wages and OSHA, social services that allow able bodied people get by without working is a huge issue with getting unmotivated people to work. The fact is also, people are free to set their own standard of living. I think it’s dumb but plenty of people would rather work at Hardee’s for much less money, not have to drug test or work in the heat, and just get by.
What I was trying to get at with my basic premise is that we are running a giant affirmative action plan. If you define the “unmotivated, lazy, uninterested, etc” as a minority group then how is it not affirmative action to insist they still be given jobs over more qualified people who want to work more. Take the money out of it….why is it preferable for businesses to hire those “trapped in crime, drugs and unemployment” instead of a legal immigrant worker that will produce far more for that business? Seriously, is it their civic duty? Is there some God given right to people that are lucky enough to be born in this country that makes them deserve to be coerced into working? I’m asking this in a serious, good faith manner.
You are asking if those Americans have a right to be employed, regardless of their quality of work, just because they are Americans (essentially protectionism but for labor). Your problem highlights a considerable issue with protectionism both ideally and practically.
People want better stuff and because of that people trade, regardless of the distance between them. You want better workers for a certain price and other people want a job for a certain price. People want some good concrete poured for a certain price and you want to pour good concrete for a certain price. Protectionism cannot see this because it is trapped to looking at trade like war. It does not see how the trades you are making for your firm are enriching you, your customers, and your employees.
Ultimately protectionism is about tribal loyalty. It is not about excelling, which is what a firm (and hopefully any individual should want to do) is about in the market, producing the best product at the best price. Its why America has done so well, for most of our nation’s history, because it has been about excelling (becoming better) and not about worrying if those who freely choose poverty should be employed.
Yeah, what he/she said.
Wow, America must really suck. Sounds like a horrible, horrible country. Why do people stay here?
As Roger Scruton mentions on the front page, perhaps Americans can steal workers from a place like Poland, so that that country can have a demographic youth and smart people collapse.
A Chamber of Commerce official recently stated, “The shortage is so acute … other companies have gone so far as to (wait for it… >>, well) offer higher wages to entice locals.”
H-2B workers drive down wages.
“…some employers are scrambling and are, for example, looking for older workers who want to work only one or two days a week. An article on a similar subject in the Boston Globe described how at least one Massachusetts employer had — pause for the horror to sink in — brought some workers up from Puerto Rico. …
Reporters and editors, as a group, can readily identify with employers who are often fellow college graduates; relating to those with high school educations or less, the people who benefit from a slightly tightened labor market, is rare. This undergirding factor should be borne in mind when reading about foreign workers and ‘labor shortages’.”
https://cis.org/North/Chamber-Commerce-Official-Unwittingly-Tells-Truth-About-H2Bs
That’s a good point. Americans normally can’t even be bothered to hire natural-born U.S. citizens who are suffering in financially-collapsing Puerto Rico. (Let the taxpayers bail them out.)
Not sure how this applies to my situation, I would say as a rule I do better with people with a high school education or less than reporters but I can’t say for sure since I don’t know any reporters. Lol
Because the Political Class does not want this particular power with the people.
It would be too easy for US citizens and corporations to contract with non-US citizens to come work in the US for a period of time. The contracting US citizen would have to track and report the residence and track any visa overstays; and, would be liable for his employees wrong doing.
Problem is only DiFi and her ilk are allowed to hire
ChiCom spiesforeigners to work for them on the taxpayers dime.You’ll get no argument.