Posted on 07/03/2006 11:09:51 PM PDT by Marius3188
Stricter immigration enforcement hits builders in the wallet
One outcome of both the legislative and enforcement attention being focused on the immigration issue could be an unintended one: higher wages.
After nearly a decade of relatively few arrests of undocumented workers, thousands have been rounded up in the last two months, with the largest action netting more than 1,000 people.
That already is making some employers think twice about hiring undocumented workers and it is making some job seekers nervous about work in highly scrutinized trades, such as construction.
The potential in Florida for wage pressure is enormous for two reasons: a job market that is as tight as it has been in the last 30 years, and the critical position that immigrants, particularly Latinos, have in one of the Sunshine State's seminal industries -- construction.
With new, more stringent regulations being talked about at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, even without action by Congress this year, enforcement is going to rise, and with it, wages.
"It's already gotten tougher to hire people who are not legally authorized to work," said Wendy Smith, an immigration attorney with Tampa's Fisher & Phillips law firm. "There is not a whole lot of evidence that American citizens are going to step up to take these 12 million jobs.
"So wages, especially in low-paying job sectors, will be driven up."
Last year, Wal-Mart executives dodged potential criminal charges for hiring hundreds of undocumented workers, but more recent enforcement by Homeland Security has targeted employers as well as employees. That has increased the pressure on employers to avoid undocumented workers.
In mid-April, for example, seven current and former managers at IFCO Systems, a maker of wooden pallets, crates and containers, were arrested on criminal conspiracy charges for transporting, harboring and encouraging illegal workers to continue working for the company. They were arrested as part of an operation by Homeland Security targeting 1,187 undocumented workers at 40 separate IFCO plants in 26 states.
Meanwhile, Homeland Security has proposed a significant regulation change where it would use mismatched Social Security numbers used for employment to immediately investigate whether it involves undocumented workers. Those new rules will likely be in place at the federal level within the next two months, with or without comprehensive immigration reform.
"Now, we can only request those no-match letters once we have a lead that an employee is hiring undocumented workers," said DHS spokesperson Joanna Gonzalez. "This regulation would allow us to use those no-match names as leads."
The net effect: an immediate drop in the cost and the speed of job-site enforcement, Gonzalez said.
Construction feeling the heat
Some Southwest Florida construction sites already have begun to feel the heat, said Edie Ousley, a spokesman for the Florida Home Builders Association.
"There's been rumors of increased enforcement, so there's been some no-shows at job sites," Ousley said.
By some estimates, half of all Florida construction jobs are now filled by Latinos.
It is an industry that the Florida Agency for Workforce Innovation says is struggling to fill as many as 13,000 vacant jobs to keep up with demand.
There already has been considerable wage pressure in construction.
In the last five years, construction wages have risen 5 percent nationally -- from about $739 per week to $779 per week -- but 9.1 percent, from $646 to $705, in the Sunshine State, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In Sarasota, Manatee and Charlotte counties, increases have averaged about 8.3 percent.
George Borjas is usually the academic arguing that wages have been driven down in many low-paying job sectors by immigration. But the vocal opponent of allowing undocumented workers into the U.S. acknowledges that stricter enforcement will undoubtedly have the reverse effect.
"There is no arguing that labor shortages raise wages and that labor surpluses push them down," Borjas said. "By limiting the number of undocumented workers, there will be more competition for labor and less competition for work. This will drive up wages."
Greg Schell, an employment attorney from Lake Worth who has represented undocumented farmworkers for more than 28 years, said job-site enforcement that involves both the employee and employer is critical to getting a handle on the undocumented worker issue.
"Through all the tough talk -- yes, we are going to build more fences and we will probably start deporting more workers -- but unless we start penalizing employers, they will say 'Well, I guess I will just go out and find some more workers,'" he said.
Schell said that wages in essential, low-paying job sectors will have to rise, and for other "non-essential" jobs, choices will have to be made.
Nowhere is that more true in agriculture, the "canary in the coal mine" for labor phenomena.
"A lot of these low-wage jobs, someone's gotta perform. But there are some industries that are going to have to make decisions -- they are either going to mechanize or go abroad," Schell said.
"In a way, innovation and mechanization has been stifled by cheap labor; that's especially true in agriculture."
Who ever said doing something the right way was easy.
To have an entire workforce based on a false premise(Illegal Immigrants) is silly.
This is good, but once employers realize this is an election year, "round up the usual suspects" gambit, it will be back to business as usual.
"To have an entire workforce based on a false premise(Illegal Immigrants) is silly"
Recently someone posted an article about how California winemakers may lose market to other countries if illegals keep getting harassed.
A thought occurred to me that I may start mentioning a lot, if you depend on an illegal foreign workforce to maximize your income, then chances are you are pretty wealthy.
Think about it, the media may have never interviewed the individual Americans that are fighting these foreigners for jobs and housing.
The media always goes to the plant owner, the commercial farmer, the management of a construction conglomerate, and reports their tale of woe.
When I'm talking to a guy that says but if I hire the local citizens it will increase my annual labor costs by a percentage, my reaction is that he isn't a real business man, no matter how rich he is, he is padding his false figures by illegal, under the table practices.
ping
El Wrongo! Enforcing immigration laws against ILLEGAL ALIENS.
What do you think the plantation owner's arguments were about the rising price of cotton? ;)
The Invisible Hand always works, like the tide.
Junk minimum wage and pool stuff like Workers Comp into the private sector.
The status quo is madness.
"What do you think the plantation owner's arguments were about the rising price of cotton? ;)"
Something like " can you imagine what that would do to my profit margin?"
Why I would die, it would mean a lesser gross for me in the end.
If we were playing at a flat table, our ideas would square up entirely. Unfortunately, the evil, faceless, amorphous (sarcasm) agribusiness lobby gets things like tariffs and import quotas while simultaneously complaining about "having" to hire illegals.
It's contemporary farm policy, which affects a lot of Washington DC. Think of the average school district, for instance.
Are you telling me that the laborer that holds the 2 X 6 across his knee and slams the circular saw across it isn't going to actually get the 30° angle at 5 feet, 6 and 3/4 inches?
Our local news had a segment tonight on a whining peach grower who had just half the "immigrants" as last year to pick his crop. Of course, the interviewer babe never asked him if he had raised his wages to attract more pickers.
truth bump
Same thing happens here in Central Wa at the many apple orchards. Damnedest thing is that the wages aren't exactly bad, though they're seasonal: they start at something like $12/hr and provide room and board. I'd have taken that over my summers in college - but, unfortunately, English-speakers (anecdote - not a blanket judgment) tend to get harrassed out of the jobs, from what I've heard.
"I'd have taken that over my summers in college - but, unfortunately, English-speakers (anecdote - not a blanket judgment) tend to get harrassed out of the jobs, from what I've heard. "
I was going to write a detailed answer but this is easier.
Find out where your local illegal bar is, go there and have a few beers(if they serve you), Most of the guys on the INTERNET don't have the courage to do that, what they will find is a violent knife culture, men a few years older and a little more worldly than the young Americans that used to perform their jobs.
If anyone is brave enough to try this , try to make it an hour, well, the vibe you feel is what happens on the job site after the numbers shift, to where they don't have to play nice anymore.
The average 20 year old American is not ready to compete with a 25 year old man that had the balls to smuggle himself into the richest most powerful country on earth, and that has the type of mind that makes him comfortable dealing with challenges most of us only see in movies, like purchasing forged federal documents and living under an assumed name, always being prepared to jump out of the vehicle and flee for the border.
In time they figure out how to buy homes ,circumvent the tax system, raise families with all the health care and education, all while living undercover.
These people are just a little more than really sweet peasants, hoping to pick your tomatoes and then return to their village after they get their deposit back on their apartment in Chicago.
Gotta watch out for those violent knives. They are first cousins to those guns that go on rampages.
Ah, but the market is like the force of gravity! Nothing dare get in its way!
Yuppers, one of those self-shooting shotguns killed a minister in TN while his wife was absent-mindedly holding it!
"Gotta watch out for those violent knives. They are first cousins to those guns that go on rampages."
I'm not very good at punctuation , nor proof reading, but until the PC thing took hold, everybody has always known Mexico is a knife culture.
Talk to a guy over say 60 and ask him, has anyone thought of Mexico as a knife culture.
Whenever we hear of trouble in Mexico, it's cram full of guns. Nobody cares about the knives anymore.
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