Posted on 05/02/2006 12:28:19 PM PDT by Rick_Michael
NEW YORK (CNN) -- We all awoke to headlines in our nation's most important newspapers reminding us that this is "A Day Without Immigrants." Not illegal immigrants, mind you, but immigrants.
~SNIP~
"The meat packers are confirming what we know," says University of Maryland economics professor Peter Morici, "and that is that this large group of illegal aliens in the United States is lowering the wage rate of semiskilled workers, people who are high school dropouts or high school graduates with minimal training."
In fact, a meat-packing job paid $19 an hour in 1980, but today that same job pays closer to $9 an hour, according to the Labor Department. That's entirely consistent with what we've been reporting -- that illegal aliens depress wages for U.S. workers by as much as $200 billion a year in addition to placing a tremendous burden on hospitals, schools and other social services.
~SNIP~
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
i did temp day labor in a meat packing plant for $7 in 1987.
fwiw- it was crappy pay then
WOW!
can't wait utnil the media whouts this one from the rooftops and DC realizes that all the hype has been wrong....waiting........waiting.......
$19 an hour in 1980 is amazingly awesome. And it's not bad today. More than what I'm making.
But Bush says we can't survive without them...
The unions drove meatpackers out of business. Then tose packinghouses left standing consolidated operations into the rural midwest and imported illegal labor to fill the jobs at low wages.
Are you saying that wages went down that quickly or rather wages were at that position already and had always been that way? 19 vs 7 is a big difference in the 80's.
A fifty percent drop in wages, good new, atleast from Dane's persepctive.
Not that I expect him to take a paycut.
I don't recall hearing of a single case of E. coli in 1980.
I pack meat but don't get paid. My little SUV can pack alot of roadkill meat between it and the pavement!
And shoeing horses was a good paying job 100 years ago.
Dobbs doesn't get it.
So they went from extremely high wages to extremely low wages? How interesting.
It may have been $19 for a senior packer in a union shop in a large northeastern city at a meat packing plant where the chief customer was corrupt gov't institutions who didn't mind overcharging.
I bet Lou Dobbs doesn't complain when he pays $2.99/lb for beef when it might be $7.99 if we were still overpaying a relatively low skilled worker.
I have compassion for those who come here looking for a better life but they do lower wages, that is a fact. I heard an illegal say the other day that they build the roads and highways, a job Americans won't do. That is a job that Americans used to do, with pride, but the wages have been so lowered that it is not worth it. One can live on that wage when you have 10 people living together.
"Dobbs doesn't get it."
What specifically doesn't he get?
Illegals negatively impact Wages... Hell thanks to our government even legals via the H1-B do the same thing... Government has been selling us down the tubes for a while, and both parties are guilty of it.
Breadstown, Illinois has been completely destroy by Cargil. the population is now 80% mexican. Once upon a time you could supoort a family with a stay at home mom by being a butcher.
Reagan (or Truman) wouldn't have blinked at your threat, you puke.
You are correct about the unions being partially at fault. I grew up in a town of 7,500 with a Morrell beef and a Morrell pork processing plant and between the two they employed about 300 people. In the early 80's they closed the plants and withing a year about 25% of the homes in town were for sale. That came at the same time as the farm crisis and there were many towns in the Midwest that collapsed.
He's got his dates a bit off but he's essentially correct.....
http://exposingtheleft.blogspot.com/2006/04/beardstown-plant-to-close-monday-for.html
People don't ride horses. Give me a break.
the labor cost component is hardly that. its the same false argument as with lettuce.
if we didn't have this cheap labor, these meat plants would invest in automation and machines to do this work. the cheap labor prevents investment in technology.
Is the options in these industries illegals or unions only?
Extremely low wages or extremely high....that's kind-of sad, being that I'm sure many Americans would work for a descent wage if offered.
BTTT
Dobbs is a mouldy old fatass who Im surprised to see complaining about anything that lowers the cost of food.
Same thing happened to brick-laying here in Texas in the late 70's. Trust me I know I used to be a brick-layer until the mexicans drove me under. Went back to college and did fine but it was a HUGE PAIN to reeducate and retrain at 35. I was one of the very few that pulled it off. 3 years of abject poverty, carless/nearly homeless, hitch hiking to/from day labor job to/from local College. No sleep, no fun, work, walk, study, walk, work, walk, ......
except that unions don't mean "extremely high" wages. what do you want the middle class to earn in this country, $12 an hour?
Funny my steaks cost more. Whose fooling who here? As I have stated repeatedly, alter the tax code to include employers who profit from hiring slavery lite, illegal labor, so that the employer is required to voluntarily pay a luxury or excess profits tax. Yeah, yeah they'll pass along the cost but that's ultimately the idea if you're serious about this. We need to pay for our sins. Slavery lite is a moral abomnimation. Use the money to fund SS. If the employer is found to have employed illegals during a routine audit and have not been paying their tax, they face stiffer troubles.
I think it varies, depending on the state. But you are right, most Americans just want a liveable wage, nothing fancy, which most corporations could afford.
I noticed that some docks on the west coast were shut down yesterday. Supposedly, Longshoremen make around 100 grand per yr. Wonder what their illegal counterparts make?
"Ernesto Nevarez of the L.A. Port Collective is promising..."
Yep, that's probably the worst comment I've heard from any illegal supporter.
Fifty one bucks an hour is good money,but I'd rather get 31 an hour processing tomatoes.
Less odor....no blood.
there are little savings passed to consumers. its the "Nike model" - they send production to asia for $1 a day, you still pay $100 for the sneakers.
---And shoeing horses was a good paying job 100 years ago.---
It's a better paying job now but there aren't as many openings.
don't kid yourself, china will ship that stuff to mexico and truck it into the US via the trans texas corridor - and cut out the CA port operations.
ping
"except that unions don't mean "extremely high" wages. what do you want the middle class to earn in this country, $12 an hour?"
My father worked for a union, and I would say any union I'm aware of (and I should know), usually gets the business to pay far too much for what they (the workers) do.
Minus illegals, whatever the demand will offer...to answer your question.
I would assume that would be somewhere in the middle between illegals and union workers. There's many construction agencies that operate without unions and the pay is just fine. Middle class people don't need $51 dollars an hour.
The politicians complain about outsourcing but isn't this a case of INSOURCING ILLEGAL LABOR?
Didn't he say it was a temp job he had, starting out. No sector pays evenly across the board.
Be careful what you say. Folks around here will start lambasting you for not having your own corporation.
Lou Dobbs is the man. A sensible, no frothing over at the mouth realist, who tells it like it is.
I'm glad he poked fun at the media labeling this "without "immigrants"...it is truely, without illegal immigrants."
I resent what illegals, in conjuntion with outsourcing has done to the average American worker with minimal skills. I personally don't have a dog in the fight, I'm self-employed now and doing quite well financially. However, like Dobbs, I remember my roots and friends who aren't.
You can be fired, Ernesto. And believe me: there's more of us than there are of you.
I simply don't believe that the *same* job that paid 19/hr in 80, pays less now.
Shoeing horses is still a good paying job!! Hard on the back, but pay is good.
Not sure what your point is?
Why hasn't Lou been berating politicians over this since like 1993 or so?
You mean, we don't need meat packers anymore? Darn, I guess we are all going vegetarian or do you mean it's going to be a do it yourself thing like gassing up the car?
susie
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