14 Do not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether that worker is a fellow Israelite or a foreigner residing in one of your towns.
15 Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor and are counting on it. Otherwise they may cry to the LORD against you, and you will be guilty of sin.
James 5:4
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I'm sorry, but these verses do NOT apply.
Nothing about hiring others that WILL work than less than you.
Perhaps you should about the workers in the vineyard parable; who whined because they got paid less per hour than others.
“I’m sorry, but these verses do NOT apply.”
In Rerum Novarum, On the Condition of the Working Classes, an Encyclical Letter of His Holiness Pope Leo XIII issued on May 15, 1891, the Holy Father wrote:
32. Among the most important duties of employers the principal one is to give every worker what is justly due him. Assuredly, to establish a rule of pay in accord with justice, many factors must be taken into account. But, in general, the rich and employers must remember that no laws, either human or divine, permit them for their own profit to oppress the needy and the wretched or to seek gain from another’s want. To defraud anyone of the wage due him is a great crime that calls down avenging wrath from Heaven, “Behold, the wages of the laborers...which have been kept back by you unjustly, cry out: and their cry has entered into the ears of the Lord of Hosts.”
61. We shall now touch upon a matter of very great importance, and one which must be correctly understood in order to avoid falling into error on one side or the other. We are told that free consent fixes the amount of a wage; that therefore the employer, after paying the wage agreed to would seem to have discharged his obligation and not to owe anything more; that only then would injustice be done if either the employer should refuse to pay the whole amount of the wage, or the worker should refuse to perform all the work to which he had committed himself; and that in those cases, but in no others, is it proper for the public authority to safeguard the rights of each party. (This would seem to be your position, Elsie.)
62. An impartial judge would *not* assent readily or without reservation to this reasoning, because it is not complete in all respects; one factor to be considered, and one of the greatest importance, is missing. To work is to expend one’s energy for the purpose of securing the things necessary for the various needs of life and especially for its preservation. “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread.” Accordingly, in man sweat-labor has two marks, as it were, implanted by nature, so that it is truly personal, because work energy inheres in the person and belongs completely to him by whom it is expended, and for whose use it is destined by nature; and secondly, that it is necessary, because man has need of the fruit of his labors to preserve his life, and nature itself, which must be most strictly obeyed, commands him to preserve it. If labor should be considered only under the aspect that it is personal, there is no doubt that it would be entirely in the worker’s power to set the amount of the agreed wage at too low a figure. For inasmuch as he performs work by his own free will, he can also by his own free will be satisfied with either a paltry wage for his work or even with none at all. But this matter must be judged far differently, if with the factor of personality we combine the factor of necessity, from which indeed the former is separable in thought but not in reality. In fact, to preserve one’s life is a duty common to all individuals, and to neglect this duty is a crime. Hence arises necessarily the right of securing things to sustain life, and only a wage earned by his labor gives a poor man the means to acquire these things.
63. Let it be granted then that worker and employer may enter freely into agreements and, in particular, concerning the amount of the wage; yet there is always underlying such agreements an element of natural justice, and one greater and more ancient than the free consent of contracting parties, namely, that the wage shall not be less than enough to support a worker who is thrifty and upright. If, compelled by necessity or moved by fear of a worse evil, a worker accepts a harder condition, which although against his will he must accept because an employer or contractor imposes it, he certainly submits to force, against which justice cries out in protest.
66. …But if the productive activity of the multitude can be stimulated by the hope of acquiring some property in land, it will gradually come to pass that, with the difference between extreme wealth and extreme penury removed, one class will become neighbor to the other….All can see how much this willing eagerness contributes to an abundance of produce and the wealth of a nation. Hence, in the third place, will flow the benefit that men can easily be kept from leaving the country in which they have been born and bred; for they would not exchange their native country for a foreign land if their native country furnished them sufficient means of living.
People who use cheap foreign labor are not giving every worker what is justly due him. They are for their own profit oppressing the needy and the wretched and seeking gain from another’s want. In fact, they use that cheap foreign labor specifically because they do not want to pay a just wage.
Your position fails to take into account that a person’s work energy is both personal and necessary. “If labor should be considered only under the aspect that it is personal, there is no doubt that it would be entirely in the worker’s power to set the amount of the agreed wage at too low a figure.” However, the personal nature of work can only be separated from its necessary nature “in thought but not in reality.”
“…man has need of the fruit of his labors to preserve his life, and nature itself, which must be most strictly obeyed, commands him to preserve it. In fact, to preserve one’s life is a duty common to all individuals, and to neglect this duty is a crime. Hence arises necessarily the right of securing things to sustain life, and only a wage earned by his labor gives a poor man the means to acquire these things.”
The influx of cheap, usually illegal, foreign labor has the effect of driving wages down for all of us, and that cannot be denied. Those who use that labor are denying the foreign laborers what they are entitled to—just compensation—and are at the same time using the power represented by that labor pool to deny the rest of us a just wage, or even adequate employment. (And don’t go off chasing the illusion that there is anything socialist about what I have just said.)
What has caused this situation?
1. Our immigration laws are not being enforced. This sort of alliance between business and government, with its purpose of harming just about everyone else, is *not* capitalism. It is properly termed mercantilism. Under free-market capitalism, the government does not abuse its powers to distort markets in this way.
2. Excessive demands by some labor unions have handicapped many giant companies’ ability to compete.
3. Excessive regulation by unelected bureaucrats has made it extremely difficult for American businesses to do business in America. We must have a constitutional amendment barring enabling acts, which allow despicable scoundrels in congress to pass off their lawmaking powers to agencies such as the EPA, BATF, etc. The Department of Education, for corn’s sake, has a SWAT team.
4. Dumbing down of the schools by malevolent leftists has greatly reduced the value of our human capital. Young people today can’t even calculate a tip in their heads.
5. A general decline in morals and ethics—which is to say, of the Christian Faith—has allowed moral lepers of all stripes to worm their way to the top in every area of the public and private sector, and these loathsome vermin have no interest in the welfare of their own organizations, much less of the United States.
The purchasing power of wages has plunged since the 1960s, faster even than inflation has risen. In 1969, a young person could live adequately on $100 a week. Now, if we say that there has been 500% inflation since then, a young person should be able to live adequately on $500 a week. Should be able to pay rent, buy food and clothing for his wife and himself, maintain a used car, and even have something left over for a recreation budget.
Is that happening? $2,000 a month is a pittance for a married couple, even in low-cost areas.
If “they took our jobs” seems too simple to you, try “they are killing our Republic.” The Mexicans come up and work for an unjustly low wage because they are “compelled by necessity or moved by fear of a worse evil.” They “(accept) a harder condition” because employers impose it. In this, they “certainly (submit) to force, against which justice cries out in protest.”
At the same time, the effect of this pool of cheap labor on the United States is disastrous. Because of it, employers have the power to insist on ever-lower wages, and we are “compelled by necessity or moved by fear of a worse evil” to accept those wages—if we can get them. We are submitting to force, plain and simple.
If your position is accepted, employers can continue to drive wages down until they reach a level just slightly above those in Mexico. It would be stupid and unjust of them to do so, but when is the last time you saw that stop a corporate bean counter?
Those Bible verses, therefore, most certainly do apply.
Importing cheap labor to drive wages down is a mortal sin.
It is worth noting that no policy to the left of Ronald Reagan has the slightest chance of improving any of this in the slightest. Can’t go too far to the right on this one.
“...Perhaps you should about the workers in the vineyard parable...”
I certainly make no claim to be a biblical scholar, but I have always thought that parable referred to salvation and not to the literal worker and wages.
I thought it had to do with those who had accepted Christ early in life and lived a long virtuous life (laboring in the vineyard) being promised the kingdom of heaven,
comparing themselves to those who may have led a long life of debauchery and then later in life accepted Christ,
yet both received the same blessing.
I never thought it was actually or literally about wages and labor, but as I said, I do not claim to be a biblical scholar.
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So when evening was come, the lord of the vineyard saith unto his steward, call the laborers, and give them their hire.
And when they came that were hired about the eleventh hour, they received every man a penny.
But when the first came, they supposed that they should have received more; and they likewise received every man a penny.
And when they had received it, they murmured against the good man of the house, saying, These last have wrought but one hour, and thou hast made them equal unto us, which have borne the burden and heat of the day.
But he answered one of them, and said, friend, I do thee no wrong: didst not thou agree with me for a penny? Take that thine is, and go thy way, I will give unto this last, even as unto thee. Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with mine own? Is thine eye evil, because I am good? So the last shall be first, and the first last: for many be called, but few chosen.
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H-1b visa holders can’t switch jobs and are wage slaves. Are you in favor of that?