Posted on 04/26/2017 5:52:38 AM PDT by C19fan
Eddie Ybarra and Francisco Martinez, both in their 40s, work side by side building the walls of two of the newest condo buildings in downtown Los Angeles. They drive pickup trucks to work, park in adjacent lots and both take their lunch break around 10 a.m. That’s about all they share.
Ybarra, born in Los Angeles, has built a solidly middle-class lifestyle on more than two decades in the carpenters’ union, earning $40 an hour on top of a pension, healthcare and unlimited vacation days.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Your post sums of the failure of mainstream conservative thinking on immigration.
Also known as "the myth of the redemptive Hispanic." Establishment Republicans look at the bordertown barrios through rose-colored glasses, seeing none of the poverty, crime, and social dysfunction, all the while convincing themselves that these run-down shanty town ghettos are bastions of the entrepreneurial spirit and traditional morality.
Dubya and his amnesty loving GOP flunkies told us this was a good thing.
Make California Mexico Again, with all of its poverty and squalor.
“If you want immigrants and their low wages out of the equation step up enforcement against employers who fail to verify citizenship and don’t pay the required taxes on their employees. ‘
That was part of the 1986 Reagan amnesty.
Never implemented by GHW Bush or any other president including his idiot amnesty pushing son.
20 years ago in a medium sized southern city and old girlfriend’s son was making $18/hr. framing houses. Not bad pay for a high school graduate in that location.
Within 5 years the Mexican framing crews drove the wage down to between $8-$10/hour.
Does anyone here remember the construction site portajohn graffiti wars between mexicans and Americans in the mid-90’s?
More of the usual “Mexicans are conservatives” idiocy spouted by those who live a thousand miles from border.
Guess you didn’t witness what happened in California when the flood of “entrepreneurs and capitalists!” arrived.
Must be a mystery to you why Reagan Country turned into Obama Country.
Exactly, it’s insane. But that kind of thinking is very widespread among older conservatives. Especially older conservatives who have little experience living in an area of high immigration.
We have now the strange phenomenon where Trump was elected President basically on Pat Buchanan’s platform but older conservatives who oppose those kinds of paleocon views got on the Trump train late and are now cheering every time Trump moves away from the positions he campaigned on.
Unfortunately, we may see more of this in the future as Jared and Ivanka start to hold more sway over Trump as advisors than the Bannon and Miller wing of his cabinet. I hope I'm wrong, but we've already seen Trump adopt a softer line on "Dreamers."
Exactly, it’s insane. But that kind of thinking is very widespread among older conservatives. Especially older conservatives who have little experience living in an area of high immigration.
Elite conservatives who idealize Hispanics as "entrepreneurial conservatives" remind me of "black is beautiful" college campus radicals from the 60's and 70's, most of whom, as children of privilege, probably didn't have a single black person in their social circle. They're delusional fools in love with an idealized myth, not with anyone or anything in reality.
In counter-argument, the major reason that state and federal laws protecting workers exist at all is because of unions.
The biggest issue with unions is that the leadership of unions has been coopted by organized crime and the Democrat Party (one and the same thing). There needs to be laws passed that reform of unions where union members vote on whether political contributions are to be made, and if so, what organizations and candidates they should be made to. If that is done you will see unions fight for America again.
#2 Correct. I hated being in a union when I first started working. Never again. All the complaints from your “brothers and sisters” if you made a nickel more then anyone else or wanted to do better and did not like waiting “your turn”. $500 a day should pay for a house!
FTA: “They earn more, but they don’t have guaranteed work,” Martinez said. About five years ago, the sheet metal workers union tried to organize Tinco workers, but Martinez voted against it, like the majority of his co-workers.
A sheet metal foreman in the union gets paid around $47 an hour, but cannot work independently, outside of union-negotiated contracts.
Martinez makes much of his money on the side, often earning more than $500 in a day on jobs over the weekend and after regular work hours. He works with his brother, whom he persuaded to emigrate from Mexico a decade ago, and his 24-year-old son Javier.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.