Why do you assume that I have anything to do with a labor union? That sounds like some sort of attempt to deflect or disarm my comments. For the record, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a union employer. And I never indicated to you that I had.
No, I'm just a guy who chose to go into construction at a young age, and have worked in that field for the last 33 years. 16 years ago, my wife and I started our own small construction business, and it thrived for a number of years until we began to be underbid by our unscrupulous competitors who were employing illegal alien labor.
While I bore the added expenses of being 100% in compliance with state and federal laws regarding taxes, unemployment, worker's comp, etcetera, other operators were paying illegals half of what my guys were making, while also paying nothing to the government in the way of employer contributions. That allowed them to price their jobs at a level that I couldn't touch.
I assure you, unions had absolutely nothing to do with the market distortions that were disrupting mine, and fellow contractors' businesses. Eventually, the drop in sales forced many of my brothers to leave the business. Some went over to the dark side and began hiring illegals themselves. And some of us just hung in there, letting our guys go one by one, until they were all gone.
Let me tell you something. We now make roughly 50% less for the same work, as we did in 2005. Why is that? It's because the presence of illegal alien labor in our industry has decimated wages across the boards. If a contractor can pay his guys peanuts to get the job done, he can charge a whole lot less for his projects.
Try competing with guys like that if you're playing by the rules, and employ a crew of American workers who you pay at levels commensurate with their skills and output. You can't. The market won't support it while there's access to labor that costs half as much.
But I don't think I really need to explain all this to you. You know exactly what I'm talking about. If you've been in business for any length of time, you know full well what illegal labor has done to small contracting businesses, and the Americans who formerly worked for them.
Now let me ask you a question. Were your hundreds of "hard working guys" legal to work in this country? Are you sure? Did you use E-Verify to check them out?
What about American workers? Did you ever hire any of them? If not, why not? Is it because they never showed up to apply? Now, why do you think that is?
Windflier, my first comment in response to your lengthy response is directed at your last paragraph where you in quire of me “What about American Workers? Did you ever hire any of them? Answer: From 1971 to around 2009 I hired (myself and through sub contractors on my jobs) many thousands of American citizens. That’s a fact. No doubt too, some of the people that worked for some of my sub contractors were illegal. E verify was not even a pipe dream back then. I am 99% sure I never directly hired an illegal worker on any of my jobs.
Now, let me give you, and any other readers, some perspective so that this discussion can hopefully progress some. I came home from 2 years active duty in May 71. I was 23. By 1978, I was building my first apartment project at 29. I owned half the project and was the General Contractor. Oh, and there was zero wealth in my family back then. The project was successful and we built many more, in that same general ownership/construction modality.
The first sub on the jobs were always the excavation man. Whether or not his operators were “legal”, I confess to not knowing. I do know he was the low bidder and available immediately which, back then, was all that mattered. After site work and foundations, 90% of workers on my jobs were obviously legal (Caucasians) and spoke English but in those days this was not a hot issue like it is today, as it should be. So much for some “perspective”.
To your points, or most of them: I assumed you were “probably” a union guy by the comments you made. Since you were not and are not, that puts us on the same page, or close.
Regarding the unscrupulous, illegal hiring of non citizens, I went out of business and lost a half million dollars in a sitework company for the exact same identical reasons you cite! So, once again we find ourselves on the same page and moving up on the over-arching point that you did not catch in my original post.
RE my “hard working guys” statement. They just are. But, when I say that, I am speaking of Mexican General Laborers performing semi skilled work out in the hot sun and, again, I don’t know where u come from but down here in Texas these hardy Mexican Workers are the only ones that will do that work. I know and/or have not met one fellow developer/contractor that disagrees with that statement.
Now, predictably, I know some freeper is going to say “bs” you don’t pay them enough. If you did, a white guy (American Citizen) would do the work. LOL, I call bs back on that, in advance! In emergencies, I have paid $25.00 to Caucasians to swing a sledge, I have yet to find one that would do it more than an hour or so before throwing it on the ground and walking off. Sometimes, I had to do it! So, paying a guy that swings a sledge hammer at a stake in the ground 25-35 an hour is nothing short of an “hallucination”. The market will not permit it! AND, Caucasians cannot and will not do it all day long, day after day, week after week in the hot Texas Sun....for any amount of money! Thus, in an ironic way, we all owe that hardy Mexican worker out there swinging that sledge, because without somebody swinging it all day long every day, there is no sitework and there are no foundations and no job for any of us.
Any sub, like Windflier for instance, who is paying these type wages (25-35$) to an “American Citizen” to swing a sledge hammer will be out of business from the START in Texas, a right to work state that is extremely HOT in the summer!
I am not even going to argue that point any more with anybody. You cannot blithely dismiss “right to work” and the competitive environment it creates (in the construction industry in Texas) while claiming to advance intelligent argument points.
So, what to do? Well, some freepers will say “throw em all out of the country”. That feels good to say but will NEVER happen short of installing a conservative dictator!
So, AGAIN, what’s the answer? The only answer I’ve heard of is a “Guest Worker” program and I am not going to rehash (state again) what the advantages of one are because I want to get to your MAIN point (Windflier’s).
In a properly structured and monitored Guest Worker (hereafter referred to as just GW) program, the MAIN complaint you have is, “the presence of illegal alien labor in our industry has decimated wages across the board”.
AGREED! (and, I am only commenting on Texas)
Again, the question though is “what to do about it” that is doable, not a fantasy! I say “guest worker” because it will immediately move the players around on the table by: 1. the number of guest workers will be far less than the cash out of someone’s pocket scenarios we see going on around a sub’s pick up today. This is because in a properly enforced and set up GW program the EMPLOYER will have to have proper paperwork on each worker and the worker himself will have to provide some of it. If he can’t, and MANY won’t, he will get no work, because the Employer, (you and me) does not want to go to jail. (2) The GW’s will have to start paying WITH-HOLDING INCLUDING SS and FICA, another leveler of competition as it will drive their wages UP! (3) A GW program could require a GW to take a basic one day English class so MINIMUM communication could go on between the employer and the employee without an interpreter in the middle that sometimes intentionally lies for personal gain which again artificially inflates costs.
So, there is no question that a GW program would level the playing field SOME and help do what you want to do which is “HIRE MORE “AMERICAN’ WORKERS AND FEWER ‘NON CITIZENS’. Part of the problem in the past is guys like you and me did not get involved. This time around, that should change and hell, let’s make it (an enforcement regimen) tough!
Now, this gets me to the question I will be attacked on. Can the “existing” federal government do this? Probably not since they cannot build a website. So, we must get to a situation this coming November where we retire 90% of the lifelong professional ruling class in DC. Short of a live fire revolution, that is the only answer. Some guys and gals with brains, will hire some federal bureaucrats with brains instead of gender or sexual preference.
In the meantime Windflier, I feel from reading what you say that you are more of a Guest Worker supporter than you think.
Thanks. Nice discussion!