okie wrote:Green Witch wrote:Yeah, America needs more vigilante clowns to keep us safe from the people that pick our crops, clean our toilets and mow our lawns.
In case you haven't heard, we abolished slavery with the Civil War. And we clean our own toilets and mow our own lawn. Try it sometime. Either that or pay a competitive wage to legal citizens like everybody else is expected to.
Plenty of Americans do not clean their own toilet, mow their own lawn and they certainly do not process their own food. I have done all of the above for some American at some point.
Actually Okie, Im willing to agree - partly. I assume because of this belief you do not eat at McDonalds (or any other fast food) chicken from Tyson or pork from Jimmie Dean. And of course you would never shop at Walmart - a big employer of illegals and the number one destroyer of well paying jobs in the US.
All factory farms use illegal labor and McDonald's started the problem years ago by demanding cheaply processed meat. Meat cutting was once a well paid profession until Big Agra started to bow to the demands of places like McDonalds. I agree that restoring this industry back to it's pre-factory farm days would give well paying jobs back to our citizens. Of course, the whole industry would have to be literally cleaned-up and I don't think people want to give up their cheap flesh, Personally, If I eat it I raise it or I buy it from the local guy who did.
However, on one thing I can argue from personal experience. I'm a landscaper and I know a lot of landscapers. I never use illegal labor, but I do look for carded latinos. Why? Because they are the best workers. I pay $15 per hour for someone who can dig a hole and move heavy objects, good money in my parts. I have tried to hire American men, most last about two weeks and go off to the mall to work for less money in an air conditioned big box. The Americans that last are usually the pot heads and only agree to work stoned. The latinos that have worked with me have all put in longer hours (willingly), were drug free and did a better overall job.
You say "mow the lawn" yourself. Well I don't do lawns anymore, but some of my best friends do. If you are a little old lady and/or disabled you are going to have a hard time finding someone affordable to help you around the house. Teens are too busy playing on computers to start a lawn mowing service. The lawns guys who use legal labor are twice the price of the guys who use illegal. I do what we call "estate gardening" - the reason being I can't hire a crew for less than what a millionaire can afford to pay for the job. Even when I offer a discounted rate to the elderly I always end up seeing some illegal latino clipping their hedges in the end. Lowest bidder always wins in America.
Ever pick strawberries on a commercial farm? I did and you could not pay me enough to ever do it again. How much should we pay for strawberries to make it affordable for farmers to hire Americans willing to do the job? Recently in my state they did a roundup of farm workers - 1/4 of the cabbage crop ended up rotting in the fields. Farmers could not find the population willing to go out and pick them.
Illegals are here because Americans want cheap labor. The Bush adminstration is willing to do a guest worker program because they know the Agra Biz needs them to keep their corporate machines running. Americans want cheap food and cheap servants.
A few years ago a garden pottery company in my area moved to Mexico. They claimed Americans did not want to pay the price for their products to be produced in this country with well paid labor. Either way the Mexicans (or Chinese) are going to get our jobs, and we have no one to blame but ourselves.
