Oh yeah, Americans won't do masonary work, concrete work, drywall, meatcutting and scads of other jobs that illegals are taking.
The simple fact is Americans won't do these jobs for the wages that the contractors and meatpackers are paying, or put up with the "do as I say or hit the bricks" method of workplace discilpline these people use. At least Sowell could have been a little more honest in his column, instead of conforming to the general PC crowd. The people doing the hiring of "undocumented" workers have a fairly deep labor pool of "undocumented" workers to hire for minimum wage, so they don't worry too much if a bunch get snagged in a Immigration sweep. They all know that if they get caught, the penalty isn't more than a slap on the wrist and they go out and do it all over again.
Slap those that hire these people with a swift and superlative monetary penalty, and put at least on "citizen" in jail for a few months and the practice will change.
"Oh yeah, Americans won't do masonary work, concrete work, drywall, meatcutting and scads of other jobs that illegals are taking.
The simple fact is Americans won't do these jobs for the wages that the contractors and meatpackers are paying, or put up with the "do as I say or hit the bricks" method of workplace discilpline these people use."
That's exactly how any business should be run, thee who issues the checks and finances the payroll sets the rules, not the hired help.
At least in the contracting business, the ones that have run the legitamate ones out of business aren't paying cheap wages, they are paying $20-30/hr. in cash with no deductions and won't hire anyone that is legal. they not only avoid taxes or benefits but they don't pay comp insurance which runs 50-over 100% of wages.
I ran a successful contracting business for 40 years that I shut down in 92 rather than join the ones operating illegally. It wasn't the wages which averaged about $23/hr at the time, it was the additional costs associated dirctly with the wage that increased the actual cost per hour to over $45/hr.
As far as running it with an iron fist, you bet I did! I never left the office without a payroll checkbook in my truck and anyone not following my rules of quality, methods, or rate of production was terminated!
Any employee that "had a suggestion of how to do it better" was told as far as this project is concerned it was priced out on the methods that they were told to follow and that anything different might be considered in the bidding on future work but that I wouldn't listen to it when he was being paid to work. He could call me with the suggestion between the hours of 7PM and 5AM when I didn't have work to do and make his suggestions.