Posted on 02/21/2007 5:53:58 PM PST by NellieMae
I am getting really sick of the Mexican Invasion costing so many jobs in the Southwest Virginia- East Tennessee area. My husband is a brickmason. He is the 5th generation mason in his family- our son is the 6th. Up until just a couple of years ago brickmasons had contractors ringing their phones off of the wall wanting them to do work for them. My husband had to turn down dozens of callers because he couldn't do it all. Things have sure changed . Now, a lot of contractors in this area have gotten dollar signs in their eyes and all that they can see are cheap Mexican workers. My husband has actually had a contractor (real builders that know how to actually build a house are really scarce around here anymore) pull Mexicans on the job that he was working on because he was in such a hurry to get it finished that he couldn't wait the 2 weeks that it would have taken to do the whole job. They will pull in a huge crew and wipe the job out real quick. They waste a lot of brick though (they get paid by the 1000 brick). My husband is a very good, fast mason. His speed and quality is not the issue here. Most of these workers cannot even speak English. It is really aggravating to have lived in a place your entire life and have your livlihood seriously threatened by people that are not supposed to be here in the first place. How do we get rid of this problem? Also, on another related note: It was announced today that there are hundreds of jobs being cut in ANOTHER local factory, Bristol Compressors. I was told several months ago that a construction site in Mexico was marked with a sign that read:" Future site of Bristol Compressors" Is this a coincidence or is there another company by the name of Bristol Compressors?
Me neither. They are sick of the illegals, too!
Yep. Ever notice how no one argues for Poles, Germans, Russians, Ethiopians, Chinese, Japanese, etc? All this illegals activity is around hispanics.
There are actually a lot of illegal Chinese, but they don't cause the trouble that the Hispanics cause, except of course for the Tongs.
Chinese illegals have been caught trafficking in white slavery, imprisoning people and using them as slaves, running illegal arms shipments, and other things.
I don't like illegal immigration at all, but the idea that the hispanics cause more trouble than the Chinese is hogwash and sounds sort of racist, which I am sure you aren't.
And don't forget all the trouble vaused by the Russian mafia, either!
Hey, you're supposed to adjust to the "New Economy", downsize your expectations, and start living like a Third Worlder on Third World wages. Sorry to say, you husband is part of the most reviled class there is: The American Worker.
Excellent points, Miss Marple!
"I'm involved in the printing industry, and this is untrue. The internet has actually led to more printing. The bigger threat to domestic employment in the printing industry is offshoring to South Korea and China, possibly even Viet Nam. How they can sell it for less than we pay for the same paper stock is beyond me. Currency distortion, I guess. Marketing services will be next on the block. I've already experienced some pressure to do my product photography where the product is produced. I'll survive, one way or the other, but I'll have to admit, I'm not looking forward to just being some sort of a broker. I actually enjoy seeing projects come to fruition, to get involved, touch it, feel it, smell it. Won't be able to be very hands-on with production ocurring on the other side of the planet."
Amen. However, there are some interesting developments in the printing world that is helping keep work here - digital printing, and direct to plate. Both innovations lowered prices to where we don't look at offshore printing at all. We keep our trade press very happy, and we are happy paying the premium to have complete control over quality and color - I worked for a publishing company that printed overseas, and the quality was so varied, it was crazy. I'd say a quarter of the stock had to be shipped back and rerun.
I'm not saying printing isn't facing some serious challenges, but the key factor are color, quality, and timing - where I work we can't have several weeks between releasing a job and having it hit our fullfillment house.
Working with the Asian presses can gbe frustrating too, and you have to prepress your work carefully before sending the files, or send film (if your local film house understands thair requirements). They work with old software, I have heard they are the ones buying the old, retired presses, and they've been known to slip cheaper paper into runs. Not fun if you work for a company that has high quality standards.
One reason I won't send work over there, is, if it's of any value, it will be bootlegged immediately. The bootleg markets for printing in that part of the word are enormous, and I've been at trade shows and SEEN work i produced for a company I worked for on display, by companies from Singapore.
I'm pretty happy with my current presses, I will always pay top dollar for press ops who know their trade - and care about what they do, and I will pay top dollar for color people and prepress who know what they're doing - and I keep it all local with SF and Sacramento presses. We still have some of the best houses out here, and I'm hoping there are enough people like us who keep them in business a long time (my reps tell me they're doing fine).
Boardinghouses.
Border.
See the difference?
The two are not interchangeable.
Yes, but I was playing with it and I knew it would pull the anal intensives out of the woodwork.
In terms of sheer numbers, of course they do. They comprise the vast majority of illegal immigrants. I am sure if you did a census of federal and state prisons, you would find that most of the illegal alien inmates are hispanic.
"I have no interest in how they get it done for less only that it cost less.
It's also apparent that you have no interest in the law!"
It also appears he is a Greater Fool, being willing to buy substandard quality, just because it's cheap.
If I buy a house that's brand new I expect it to be fully compliant with all building codes. With the Mexican workers, this is not the case - and I don't want to suffer financial or physical harm because the contractor made more profit by using guys who can't understand nor read the code.
I expect the same for anything else I buy - tvs, cars, computers, food - I tend to avoid restaurants, as I have heard in my industry (foodservice), that getting the workers to follow basic hygeine - ie. washing their hands - is a HUGE problem right now.
I'm tired of corporate and private profit taking precedent over everything these days. I'm tired of my money going to greedy sleazebags who are helping destroy our nation and culture for a few dollars more - which is why more and more I'm NOT buying their products, no matter how cheap they are, and that includes services like phones and internet. I fired Earthlink for sending their tech support overseas, and I'm looking at replacing Citibank right now. I refuse to do business with PacBell. I will not buy HP. I do not have my car serviced at shops that have sullen, smirking illegals working in the back, been burned once by them, won't happen again. I find local mechanics who care, and pay the little extra. I'll clean my own damned car instead of paying a pack of illegal at a car washing joint who will just ransack your vehicle and then forget to speak English when you complain (BIG problem in our area). I don't buy fast food anyway, but if I did, i'd boycott them anyway, for hiring illegals who can't speak English. The sullen ghetto workers were bad enough, the ones who would be offended for you making them actually work, but the non-English and hygeine problems is just creepy.
It's a small act that ultimately will not topple the conglomerates, but I sleep better at night that I'm not paying greedy sleazebags for shoddy service, and propping up companies who hire illegals, or send work our citizens need overseas for a few dollars more.
Then the statement should be made in that way, so that one understands that it is the NUMBERS, not the intrinsic character of the people. I hope you see my point.
Hey, you're right. I think everyone should stop paying Workers Compensation Insurance and drop all their other insurance as well. We should all start paying our bills with checks we can run off our very own printer and not worry about whether or not there's money in the bank. Then we should sell our houses and buy something in a country offshore and send all our money there and then, after we do a bunch of sloppy dangerous work we can all just skip out and not worry about the poor smuck stuck with a 30 year mortgage on a house that has fallen apart and there's no one for him to sue because we're all sitting on some beach sipping Pena Coladas.
WOW, what a great idea. This country could collapse economically in just a few years, but what the hey!
"The internet had nothing to do with the obsolescence of stripping. Apple Computer and Scitex had everything to do with that. More recently, computer to plate removed another step in the process. As a buyer of catalog-quality four color process printing, I really liked that change, due to greater speed, lower cost and FM (frequency modulated) screening ... no more moiré patterns, which was a major problem for me, since I do a lot of apparel work."
It's very analgous to the buggy whip/car industry example - yes, new digital printing tech has removed old jobs, but new jobs rise to take their place. Instead of film, we have direct to plate, which lowered prices. Digital printing is booming huge - there are plenty of areas with no digital presses located locally - a $150K investment there would make you rich. Prepress is still needed to process files, and new technologies in workflow means more work will process faster - the work we used to reject as we did'nt have the time now get printed. Color and color professionals still demand top dollar, and we still need press ops and ink houses and film houses for scanning and film output.
If anything, the company I work for prints MORE now than we have in the past, as our sales have swelled due to a bigger awareness and reaching new customers via the internet. We also buy a LOT of ink-jet related printing, in oversized posters and banners and trade show materials. That market continues to boom as well and new products come to market. The idea that I can create a campaign and have it printed on banners that can cover the side of a building, at prices that don't cause you to have an instant haert attack, is so incredibly cool. Most fo the guys I knew who lost jobs at presses doing the outdated tech like film stripping and plate making are now working at these companies, and making MORE money.
The only printers who are seriously challenged are the local mom and pop printers - the Sir Speedy's and AlphaGraphics. They need to upgrade to compete, and often can't. It's a tough world for them, when a $150 Epson inkjet printer can outperform them in small quantities, and color accuracy on color laser printing and digital printing is killing off one or two color press jobs. (But they still get a good chunk of the bindery/collation market).
I'm a South Park elitist.
LOL
Yes, there are plenty of illegal aliens from non-Hispanic countries and about one-third of the illegals come here legally on legitimate visas and then just disappear so it is more than just our southern border that needs to be secured. However, most of the illegals are the poor and undeducated from Latin America. They are the main source of problems with our overburdened medical, social welfare, educational, and penal systems.
Your logic is dizzying.
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