Unemployed Americans Competing With Immigrant Labor for Unskilled Jobs

[WillowTree]

LOS ANGELES — A year ago, a day-laborer center adjacent to a Home Depot here teemed with Latin American immigrants who showed up and found a sure day's work painting, gardening or hauling.

These days, more than immigrants are packing the Hollywood Community Job Center: Unemployed Americans are joining them. There's little work for anybody.

"Everybody is coming to look for work," Rene Jemio, outreach coordinator for the hiring hall, told the Wall Street Journal. "It's not just your average immigrant anymore; it's African-Americans and whites, too."

For the first time in a decade, unskilled immigrants are competing with Americans for work. And evidence is emerging that tens of thousands of Hispanic immigrants are withdrawing from the labor market as U.S. workers crowd them out of potential jobs. At least some of the foreigners are returning home



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And they told us it was work Americans would not do.

 

[Tarheeler]

And they told us it was work Americans would not do.

That is what I was thinking. I thought that illegals only did the work that Americans refused to do.

 

[Agnapostate]

Are you also of the opinion that they drive down wages?

 

[Ravi]

Anyone with half a brain has long realized that until the economy went sour illegals were doing jobs no one else wanted. Now with so many out of work, everyone is scrambling. The mess on Wall Street has put the entire country in a world of hurt.

 

[Agnapostate]

Even if immigrants are competing with unskilled American workers for jobs, that does not necessarily mean that it is their mere presence here that is causing this phenomenon. We might also consider the fact that they are heavily disenfranchised and deprived of rights, and thus cannot formally unionize to enter sectors of the primary labor market. Were labor reforms possible for all, competition for low-wage jobs may not exist.

 

[editec]

Are you also of the opinion that they drive down wages?

Fucking right they do.

But they don't demand lower wages, their employers can foist those lower wages upon them because they're desperate for work.

They are part of the problem, but it's not something I really blame them for.

Even if immigrants are competing with unskilled American workers for jobs, that does not necessarily mean that it is their mere presence here that is causing this phenomenon.

It does if you believe that the rate of unemployment surpresses wages.

What? You don't believe that?

We might also consider the fact that they are heavily disenfranchised and deprived of rights, and thus cannot formally unionize to enter sectors of the primary labor market.

Perhaps you haven't noticed, but American workers who are legals aren't exactly able anymore to get much traction from unions, either.

You can thank Reagans firing of PATCO for starting that trend, and the SCABS who tooks their jobs for it, too.

Certainly we cannot blame the immigrants for it, that's for damned sure.

Were labor reforms possible for all, competition for low-wage jobs may not exist.

No argument from me on the above.

Here;s a labor reform proposal I'd sign onto

DEATH TO SCABS.