Posted on 11/15/2011 10:19:20 AM PST by JerseyanExile
Skinning, gutting, and cutting up catfish is not easy or pleasant work. No one knows this better than Randy Rhodes, president of Harvest Select, which has a processing plant in impoverished Uniontown, Ala. For years, Rhodes has had trouble finding Americans willing to grab a knife and stand 10 or more hours a day in a cold, wet room for minimum wage and skimpy benefits.
Most of his employees are Guatemalan. Or they were, until Alabama enacted an immigration law in September that requires police to question people they suspect might be in the U.S. illegally and punish businesses -
(Excerpt) Read more at today.msnbc.msn.com ...
On the other hand, maybe working (physical labor) in a cold, wet environment for 10 hours a day is worth more pay than minimum wage!
Not to mention if there wasn’t cheap illegal labor, someone might have come up with an automated solution to replace the workers with.
Unemployment benefits and other handouts. If you don’t HAVE to work (because big daddy government will take care of you) WHY would you work doing this job?
Point.
For a couple generations we have trained our youth that these jobs are beneath them.
High schoolers and college students who used to do these jobs need to pick up the pace and get back to it.
It’s that illegal labor artificially lowered the going value of labor.
If it weren’t for the illegals, he’s be raising his rate until an American would take the job.
The company I worked for used to have a manufacturing plant in Uniontown, PA. It, along with a bunch of other manufacturing plants, closed down.
I wonder if it could have anything to do with the name “Uniontown”.
If your business model includes using illegal labor, then you are not running a business. You are running a criminal operation and should go out of business. Then the legal fish packers could make money.
It’s worth what the employer has to pay to get someone to do it and not a penny more.
Your excuse that they don't want to pay a wage that people here legally would work for is crap, just as defending burglary because other people have lots of stuff is crap.
My thoughts exactly! Garbage men don't make minimum wage hauling refuse away, the jobs are unpleasant, and generally you pay people to work more at unpleasant jobs.
Generally speaking, people working in the Meat Packing industries make considerabley MORE than minimum wage.
FWIW.
You can pay well above minimum wage and still not get an american to take the job. Just how much do you think an unskilled worker should be paid to gut a catfish???
Guess this guy should simply go out of business and join the doles. That'll show us. That, or we can end the 2+ years of unemployment pay and seemingly endless government handouts, which will encourage the lazy to get a job, even if it is a dirty job.
Why the heck would anyone do this job for minimum wage? They can get an easy retail job for more than that. Years
ago before all meat processing plants fired all their skilled labor making a decent wage to hire illegals
people waited in line for these jobs.
Too many of the arguments I hear in support of unlimited immigration (or excusing use of illegal immigrant labor) sound exactly like the arguments used to justify slavery before the Civil War. If fact, they are being repeated almost verbatim.
Bottom line is that the continued availability and use of impoverished illegal immigrants flooding into the workplace discourages mechanization and process improvements and depresses wages and working conditions.
Cotton farming in the south just couldn’t continue without slaves - no American wants to do that work. Eventually though, along comes International Harvester and John Deere.
If your business model can’t survive unless people are willing to stand for 10 hours a day gutting fish for three bucks an hour, then maybe your business model isn’t working.
That having been said, yes, the endless extensions and expansions of the welfare state discourages people from taking honest jobs that require one to work and maybe get dirty.
One can find work if they want to. It may not be what they want or pay what they are accustomed to. A lifestyle adjusted would be needed but there is work to be had.
To choose not to work is the fault of the individual. This is how I read Mr. Cain’s remarks, “If you don’t have a job and you’re not rich, blame yourself”
I agree with Herman !
If it weren’t for the illegals, he’s be raising his rate until an American would take the job.
I tend to agree. Every day there are people standing out to be picked up by various people for 10 dollars an hour. Not ONE American is ever there. Don’t worry the illegals are very safe from arrest as this is Annapolis, MD.....no way do they have a single worry. The point is that not ONE American is waiting to take a job. Although people who pick up these folks to do their lawn mowing, weed picking and other tasks around the house need to be realistic as Annapolis, MD has an average wage of 75,000 dollars a year. If they want to hire Americans for this type of labor then I think if they raised it to 30 dollars an hour, they might have some Americans willing to take these jobs. The other problem is normally the jobs are a day or two and then they go back to standing at the side of the road. It is really a sight to see as you drive to work. They are standing out there at 6 in the morning. Apparently they are all picked up by 8 o’clock in the morning. They don’t even try to hide this. The paper has done numerous stories on it so if Americans wanted to stand out there, it is common knowledge that they would have the opportunity to do so.
Ya think? CNBC had a bank exec on about a month ago saying that they were interviewing and people, upon being offered a job, asked if they could be called back in X months after their unemployment comp runs out. How 'bout trying this: Cut unemployment comp to 12 weeks and all get rid of all the other disincentives to work the gov't has put into place and see what happens to these "undesirable" jobs.
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