I agree. I totally understand this guys sentiments. Its easy to have a knee jerk reaction because we all hate illegal immigration so much. But he does have a point. Shortly after the Welfare Reform program went into affect and people actually had to get a job, our small company of about 50 employees started hiring former welfare recipients who had been kicked off the government teat. That summer, we went through about 100 people. They just wouldn’t work. So the company went out and hired 15 Mexicans. End of problem. They come to work every day, don’t collect Workers Compensation, never sue anyone and never demand anything. The company claimed they were paying them the same as everyone else but I doubt that. I don’t agree with illegal immigration at all. It is wrecking our country but I do know he is right about people not wanting to work. They want to start at the top and then not have to actually work for their pay. And will sue just for looking at them funny. They don’t have the perseverence to work their way up. So this guy has a point.
So the owner ran an ad for one day in a local mexican oriented newspaper. He wound up with over 200 applicants for the 30 vacancies.
He ONLY hires legal aliens. These employee's start at 6 a.m. and work till it's too dark to see everyday. It's all heavy physical labor. With a crew of 8, planting over 500 various trees (for future stock) wih nothing more than a shovel is not fun. By the way, that's just today's assignment. Tommorow's may be helping out another crew grading a 1/2 mile driveway-with a hand rake. As long as they are LEGAL, these guys/girls bust their butts. And this is considered 'seasonable employment". So you get no medical, workman's comp, or any benefit. All for $7.50 an hour.
It seems funny to me that some employers manage to find legal workers that will work, and they have a successful business. Some employers, engaged in the same type of business seem to have a real hard time finding people willing to work for them. Managing employees is a big part of being successful at business; those having a hard time finding legal workers need to rethink how they are doing things. I know several business people that I personally wouldn’t work for at any price; and I know others that I would be willing to work for even if they paid less than prevailing wages.
I know there are people who don’t want to work at all, that is true in any society. The fact is though that there are many who are willing to work, they just aren’t willing to be slaves. I think that is the key when speaking about illegal workers- many employers prefer them because they usually don’t complain about unsafe or just plain bad working conditions, bad treatment from bosses, and will accept low wages. I for one don’t think we need to support a form of slavery.