Regular as clockwork and pursuant to the study I posted about yesterday, the New York Times editors come out against the violation of workplace laws:
The report has particular significance for immigrant workers, who made up 70 percent of the survey (39 percent of them were undocumented). Workplace abuses are flourishing in the absence of a working immigration system, where illegal immigrants are vital to the economy but helpless to assert their rights.
presumably in favor of open borders.
I’ll repeat what I said yesterday: part of the attraction of these illegal workers is that they are illegal. It’s what drives their compensation down. Remove that attraction and rather than solving the problem you’ll just have a lot of low wage workers who can’t find work.
I’m in favor of increasing the number of work visas issued to Mexican citizens substantially and also engaging in a vigorous program of workplace enforcement. I don’t see any other way of solving the problems that the study found and the New York Times complains about.
Since I think the study primarily identified issues arising from work practices facing illegal immigrants, the solution makes sense. And how do you enforce this type of mistreatment aside from normalizing their illegal status?
For the non-illegals a couple of points stood out. Foreign-born women disproportionately experienced workplace violations. I’m assuming that these women are bringing some of their expectations from their native country. Perhaps a more vigorous education in workplace rules should be used in the immigration process.
Also, I don’t believe workers know their rights, which the study assumed. In my experience, workers incorrectly believe they have a right not to be fired for a stupid reason, but don’t realize that when the boss interrupts your lunch break to ask where a file is located, the boss violated your rights. (I wish the study had broken out the de minimis violations from the serious, such as the difference between workers not getting a break and those who’ve had a break interrupted)
I think that assumes that the job isn’t conditional on the illegal status.
My comment may be a bit of a stretch. And I admit I have not exposed it to lot’s of thought, but let me fling this out and see if I get a reaction. This is a situation close to me right now.
Suppose you had an employer who demanded that the employee (contractor, actually) disrupt their normal schedule and activities on a moments notice. (2 days; cancel all your other stuff and be here or else) That they got paid rather meager (although admittedly union standard) wages. That they had to drive an hour and a half to the worksite and then work until 11: 30 at night…….
and the employee/contractor is only 11 years old.
Sound like exploitation of illegals or child labor?
Not really. My daughter is filming a commercial for a national retail chain and these are the rules of engagement. She finishes the shoot tonight. You decide if these are acceptable conditions or you walk. Its a free market. No one forced her to do this.
And so when I hear about these labor exploitation arguments being made I pause. Did someone force these illegals to come here? No. Did they force them to these jobs? No. Do things need to be ideal? No. But apparently these folks want to do this to get a toe hold in America. For the future. Is this so bad?