Posted on 09/01/2005 6:47:38 PM PDT by bayourod
Longview has a readily available workforce that could help attract and retain jobs, but it's hidden, according to a marketing specialist with the Southwest Trade Adjustment Assistance Center at the University of Texas at San Antonio.
Ernesto Villalobos spoke Wednesday to local business officials about how to recruit and retain Hispanic workers, focusing on recent immigrants and non-U.S. citizens.
"It's my belief that if we're going to have the labor force of the future ... we need to understand the Hispanic culture," said John Stroud, executive director of the Longview Economic Development Corp., which sponsored Villalobos' visit.
Villalobos asked the people present whether they had been to two local Hispanic businesses and whether they knew how many Hispanic soccer teams and leagues there are. (The answer is 40 teams and two leagues.) He asked those questions, he said, because Hispanic people are around, but "we don't know how to fully integrate them."
"You have a workforce out there," he said.
Potential Hispanic employees can be divided into three categories, he said, long-term residents, new residents without families and new residents with families. Those who have families stay put longer than those who don't, he said.
Hiring recent immigrants, however, poses several problems, including language and culture, he said, encouraging business officials to send supervisors who oversee Hispanic workers to a local college to learn the phrases they need to communicate with their Hispanic workers.
Communicating Occupational, Safety and Health Administration laws to Hispanic workers also can be a problem, he said, adding that OSHA training is available in Spanish.
Recent immigrants who have arrived without their families can create even greater problems if they leave abruptly to visit their families.
"There are solutions to the problem," he said. "They're hard."
He recalled what he did at one company – telling his employees to tell him if they heard of an employee who was planning to leave. He also would advise his employees to report when they were leaving and find a replacement if they could.
"That solved some of the problems," he said.
Local companies discussed some of the problems they had run into with immigrant workers – what happens, for instance, when one person that several workers carpool with has car trouble.
Villalobos suggested a loan program for that type of situation, with money that also could be used for gas.
Nelda Konvalin, who runs the NCIC International Calling Center in Longview, said 60 percent of her employees are Hispanic. The company has set up a loan program for all its employees of up to $500 a year.
Villalobos described a company that set up trailer homes for Hispanic employees to live in near the plant.
"There's problems, but there's solutions," he said.
Before dealing with the potential problems, though, Villalobos said the workforce must be found and brought in.
"To me, it's very simple," he said.
One avenue might be through a flea market opening behind the La Michoacana Meat Market and Flea Market on Green Street. The organizers could be asked to post a bulletin board there. Local Hispanic businesses could be asked to post job listings at their stores, he said. Churches and the local Spanish radio station are other avenues.
Employers need to know where Hispanic workers are and what abilities they have because they can enhance a company, Villalobas said.
"You need to know the workforce," he said. "They're huddled all over the place in this city."
States with large numbers of immigrant employees tend to be prosperous.
"States with large numbers of immigrant employees tend to be prosperous."
Again, you never differentiate between legal and illegal.
States with high numbers of ILLEGAL immigrants tend to close down emergency rooms, since ILLEGALS use them for regular medical services and then don't pay.
"States with large numbers of immigrant employees tend to be prosperous."
Yeah. because ILLEGAL aliens would flow until areas where there were no jobs.
For pete's sake, ILLEGAL immigration is an effect of the prospertiy, not the cause of it.
quisling.
What difference does it make? When you see Hispanic looking men working at construction sites can you tell which are legal and which are illegal by looking at them?
When you have to go to an emergency room (as the anti-illegals apparently do quite frequently, probably for stomach pumping) can you tell by looking which patients are illegal?
How do you know whether your waiter is legal or the employees at the childcare center where you leave your children or the Hispanics who attend your church?
Sometimes it takes years of legal proceedings to determine if a person is legal or illegal.
So, just like on your profile page with the wall, if it's difficult,why even bother, eh?
You are such a sad little quisling. But keep posting, quislingrod - the more you post, the more support your side loses.
Prosperity feeds upon itself as long as we can keep the furnace fueled with workers. Productive employees are as important as any other asset.
ok, quisling, you keep telling yourself that as hospital emergency rooms close and people lose their lives to criminals who are flowing in across a porous border.
But since a short fence along a long border didn't stop all illegal immigration, it just shows that building a fence along the entire border would never work! What brilliant logic you display!
Hell, somebody might bypass the locks on your doors and windows and still break into your house. So why in the hell would you waste your money on locks and security if it can't stop all intruders?!?!?!
You are a joke. I was happy to see you banned, but I enjoy seeing you back here continuously doing damage to your side.
It's time, Bayourod, that you admit that you have no loyalty to the United States, its borders or its sovereignty.
You are one of the worst--a person whose only loyalty is to a 'market', and who will pursue profit on the backs of the poor and desperate. So, tell us, Rod--what happens when illegals who stay in the U.S. eventually assimilate and don't want to do the 'labor that nobody else wants to do'? Let's keep Mexico poor and desperate so we have a ready supply of coolie labor right next door.
You're pathetic, Rod, and you never answer the difficult questions. Why do you post here, troll?
wonderquisling is at it again.
Another beaut. Just added that to my tribute...I mean, stalker page.
When you see Hispanic looking men working at construction sites can you tell which are legal and which are illegal by looking at them?
That's up to the person hiring them, not someone walking or driving down the street. Bad analogy.
When you have to go to an emergency room (as the anti-illegals apparently do quite frequently, probably for stomach pumping) can you tell by looking which patients are illegal?
I'm sure the hospital's billing department can tell when they decide whether to send out a bill or not.
"How do you know whether your waiter is legal or the employees at the childcare center where you leave your children or the Hispanics who attend your church?"
Again, that's up to the employers who hire them. Oh yeah, adding the church bit is a nice touch - they're so devout and religious, although it's not as though you'd ever want them in your own house, or anything like that.
Sometimes it takes years of legal proceedings to determine if a person is legal or illegal.
And sometimes it takes about five seconds. "Papers, please?" Which reminds me - why did you stop asking people how they vote? That was a great debating tactic.
"Prosperity feeds upon itself as long as we can keep the furnace fueled with workers. Productive employees are as important as any other asset."
By your same, inane logic, gold rush towns were preosperous not because gold was discovered there, but because a bunch of miners and prospectors decided to move into the area. So a town wouldn't have to find gold, they'd just have to ship a bunch miners and prospectors and have them be in town for several months.
Hell, by the same ridiculous logic, we could take the most economically depressed city, say detroit, and ship in 50,000 "immigrants" (who cares if they're legal or illegal, right?) and VOILA! detroit would be prosperous again!
You make no sense. But keep shooting your side in the foot! We sure do appreciate it!
Bayourod: The best friend the pro-border security / anti-ILLEGAL immigration lobby has.
You're our secret weapon. Keep up the good work!
Oh my - I love your bayourod page- I have to link to it from my own!
Great work!
His allegience isn't to the market - if it was, he'd be in favor of the market not being subverted with a cheap supply of illegal labor. He'd realize that a real, honest labor market would produce more innovation in the long run.
Instead, he's concerned merely about things like who will cut his lawn or make his sushi at the supermarket. Because without illegal immigrants, those things just won't happen!
I believe you're confusing your "furnace fueled with workers" with soilent green.
Shucks, 'tweren't nuthin'. Swampy did all the work, I'm just the humble curator!
And by the same token, we can take all these "undocumented productive employees" who do so much to create prosperity in America, send them back to their home country, and TA-DA! Mexico becomes the most prosperous nation in the world!
Well, it's worth a try.
Are those the reasons you are so obsessed with "illegal" immigrants?
Do "illegal" immigrants use emergency rooms more often the legal ones? Do "illegal" immigrants commit more crimes than legal ones?
The myth about illegals being the reason for emergency rooms closing was dispelled long ago. But because of the hysteria generated by the Bush-haters, Congress appropriated a billion dollars to pay ERs that treat illegals.
By the way, why do you have to go to emergency rooms so often? I never go.
The rate of crime is the lowest in decades. You shouldn't be having a panic attack about crime. Have you been raped stabbed by an illegal?
BRILLIANT!
Absolutely brilliant- I'm kicking myself for not thinking of the same thing!
Answer the question posed by cartman90210 - if these illegal immigrants are the cause of so much prosperity, why not send them back home where they could create all that prosperity where it's really needed?
Answer: They don't create it, they FOLLOW it!
Thanks for the heads up. A fascinating collection for sure!
" By the way, why do you have to go to emergency rooms so often? I never go."
I don't go.
But your insesitive, ridiculous comments are like asking a vicitm of an illegal alien drunk driver (there have been many - too many) "Why did you have to be driving that night???!?!?"
I think you've run out of toes on your left foot. You might want to start shooting of the ones on the the right foot now.
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