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Abstract: the oligarchy wants slaves to work for them. The US workers want modern wages and living standards. The foreign workers will do this because they thin

Abstract: the oligarchy wants slaves to work for them. The US workers want modern wages and living standards. The foreign workers will do this because they think they're escaping at times worse conditions. This is treason, and these oligarchs should be punished. Of course people are going to go on welfare and government aid in conditions like this. Deplorable, and disgusting. Makes me ashamed to be a citizen of this country.

jheriko 11y ago
I think you missed a critical point from this, its not just that foreigners have lower standards, its that they do better work as well. It even quotes a guy pointing out that you get significantly worse value for money hiring americans... thats a serious issue all of its own and makes the whole situation less conspiracy theory and more capitalism.
- Nickersf 11y ago
  The report also pointed out that many of the foreign workers lack the communication skills to defend themselves from mistreatment. Even if US citizens are in some cases less productive, denying citizens jobs is wrong, and the big point I get from this is that neither the H-2 workers or the US workers should be paid slave wages. Capitalism is driven by consumerism. What's the point of having it when the people don't earn enough to consume commodities. I think this is part of the reason why our country is trillions of dollars in debt. The distribution of wealth is not balanced at all. Please don't get me wrong. I don't think the nations economic capital should be divided equally among every person, but as it stands the inequality is just off. Clearly all of this explodes into many complex topics. It just hurts to see people with money and power act so poorly.
- omegaworks 11y ago
  > It even quotes a guy pointing out that you get significantly worse value for money hiring americans... Of course you can squeeze more effort out of people you can physically retaliate against (deportation). >less conspiracy theory and more capitalism. More like corporate welfare. The machinery of low fines and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a kind of subsidization. From an economic perspective, foreign labor is forced to price themselves below their real value because they are left with no choice in the matter.
  - jheriko 11y ago
    thats not really the implication. it doesn't require squeezing... the implication is that even if paid and treated the same foreign workers are more productive, and this is very easy to believe. i'm not 100% defending the companies here, but there are two sides to this, and we all should be experienced enough to know that mass organised bullying of immigrant workers isn't a thing that you can sneak under the radar these days... its always individuals overstepping their bounds - not big organised conspiracies. it just wouldn't be anywhere near the same kind of problem if the workforce was more motivated and more competitive...
    - wyclif 11y ago
      the implication is that even if paid and treated the same But they are not paid and treated the same at all, this is the point. The foreign workers are threatened with deportation. That is a powerful motivator to work faster and harder.
      - jheriko 11y ago
        yes, and even if they weren't, i'm pretty convinced that they would work faster and harder too.
    - omegaworks 11y ago
      >even if paid and treated the same foreign workers are more productive >mass organised bullying of immigrant workers isn't a thing that you can sneak under the radar these days These are assertions without any basis in reality.
  - pliny 11y ago
    >More like corporate welfare. The machinery of low fines and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a kind of subsidization On the contrary, the government is artificially lowering the supply of labor to protect people who make a living selling their labor. Fines and deportation (and generally any restrictions on immigration) are disincentives to use foreign labor, which is often cheaper and of higher quality compared to domestic labor, the producers that are enjoying a subsidy in this case are laborers, not corporations.
- wyclif 11y ago
  its that they do better work as well You'll find that people generally do better, faster work when they have a gun pointed at their head.
- troisx 11y ago
  SO do you think that it's okay for these employers to not pay overtime just because it's physical labor?
- greendata 11y ago
  They do better work at that wage. You will definitely find well-performing local workers at a higher wage. Responsible and sane local workers won't work for that wage. According to the Wall Street Journal they were paying $750/month plus room and board. That's too low for even the imported workers which is the reason they are "running away." These farmers are essentially recreating serfdom.
- tluyben2 11y ago
  Are none of these farmers doing a per unit work? When I was young I was an overseer on a strawberry picking field (where you sit with your knees in the mud and have to try not to kill your back); I made minimum youth pay. I had that job because the farmer was a family friend. No Dutch people wanted to do the actual physical work, so it was only Turkish and Moroccan working at the actual picking. They got paid by the box, not by the hour; they made insane amounts of money from 5 am till noon. Enough to make me do that instead after a while. I could pay for vacations, going out, new stuff while my friends with jobs got minimum youth wage and couldn't do that. AND they didn't have off from noon; I had my whole day. The same happened in another job at a supermarket where I packed products in the logistics center; the pay was minimum youth wage, but if you picked more than 600 articles/day, you got paid extra and working at night you got extra on top of that. I worked like crazy and made, again, a lot more than the regular adult local/white workers who worked super slow and usually didn't make close to 600. The immigrants and me worked our asses off to make more; most Dutch guys (no girls; it was too heavy to carry most boxes) refused to. If these jobs would be per hour, I don't think anyone would want to do them well at all. We did them well because it made more money; if you get crap per hour, you wouldn't want them but poor immigrants still do and they work hard to keep them. There are shows on UK television where these angry (usually racist / Daily Mail readers) people get offered jobs they say 'immigrants took their jooobbss' and they film them; it always ends with them getting fired as they find it too heavy (start holding their backs after 2 hours because they are out of shape) and find the breaks too short, don't have discipline etc. Is that not the same in the US in many of these cases? Like theoretically US workers want those jobs but in practice they just mess them up or don't even want them?
rtpg 11y ago
Another reason this exploitation works: guest worker visas can't be transferred to another place of employment. So you're paying a price to be in the country that shouldn't need to be paid.

jheriko 11y ago

I think you missed a critical point from this, its not just that foreigners have lower standards, its that they do better work as well. It even quotes a guy pointing out that you get significantly worse value for money hiring americans... thats a serious issue all of its own and makes the whole situation less conspiracy theory and more capitalism.

Nickersf 11y ago
The report also pointed out that many of the foreign workers lack the communication skills to defend themselves from mistreatment. Even if US citizens are in some cases less productive, denying citizens jobs is wrong, and the big point I get from this is that neither the H-2 workers or the US workers should be paid slave wages. Capitalism is driven by consumerism. What's the point of having it when the people don't earn enough to consume commodities. I think this is part of the reason why our country is trillions of dollars in debt. The distribution of wealth is not balanced at all. Please don't get me wrong. I don't think the nations economic capital should be divided equally among every person, but as it stands the inequality is just off. Clearly all of this explodes into many complex topics. It just hurts to see people with money and power act so poorly.
omegaworks 11y ago
> It even quotes a guy pointing out that you get significantly worse value for money hiring americans... Of course you can squeeze more effort out of people you can physically retaliate against (deportation). >less conspiracy theory and more capitalism. More like corporate welfare. The machinery of low fines and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a kind of subsidization. From an economic perspective, foreign labor is forced to price themselves below their real value because they are left with no choice in the matter.
- jheriko 11y ago
  thats not really the implication. it doesn't require squeezing... the implication is that even if paid and treated the same foreign workers are more productive, and this is very easy to believe. i'm not 100% defending the companies here, but there are two sides to this, and we all should be experienced enough to know that mass organised bullying of immigrant workers isn't a thing that you can sneak under the radar these days... its always individuals overstepping their bounds - not big organised conspiracies. it just wouldn't be anywhere near the same kind of problem if the workforce was more motivated and more competitive...
  - wyclif 11y ago
    the implication is that even if paid and treated the same But they are not paid and treated the same at all, this is the point. The foreign workers are threatened with deportation. That is a powerful motivator to work faster and harder.
    - jheriko 11y ago
      yes, and even if they weren't, i'm pretty convinced that they would work faster and harder too.
  - omegaworks 11y ago
    >even if paid and treated the same foreign workers are more productive >mass organised bullying of immigrant workers isn't a thing that you can sneak under the radar these days These are assertions without any basis in reality.
- pliny 11y ago
  >More like corporate welfare. The machinery of low fines and US Immigration and Customs Enforcement is a kind of subsidization On the contrary, the government is artificially lowering the supply of labor to protect people who make a living selling their labor. Fines and deportation (and generally any restrictions on immigration) are disincentives to use foreign labor, which is often cheaper and of higher quality compared to domestic labor, the producers that are enjoying a subsidy in this case are laborers, not corporations.
wyclif 11y ago
its that they do better work as well You'll find that people generally do better, faster work when they have a gun pointed at their head.
troisx 11y ago
SO do you think that it's okay for these employers to not pay overtime just because it's physical labor?
greendata 11y ago
They do better work at that wage. You will definitely find well-performing local workers at a higher wage. Responsible and sane local workers won't work for that wage. According to the Wall Street Journal they were paying $750/month plus room and board. That's too low for even the imported workers which is the reason they are "running away." These farmers are essentially recreating serfdom.
tluyben2 11y ago
Are none of these farmers doing a per unit work? When I was young I was an overseer on a strawberry picking field (where you sit with your knees in the mud and have to try not to kill your back); I made minimum youth pay. I had that job because the farmer was a family friend. No Dutch people wanted to do the actual physical work, so it was only Turkish and Moroccan working at the actual picking. They got paid by the box, not by the hour; they made insane amounts of money from 5 am till noon. Enough to make me do that instead after a while. I could pay for vacations, going out, new stuff while my friends with jobs got minimum youth wage and couldn't do that. AND they didn't have off from noon; I had my whole day. The same happened in another job at a supermarket where I packed products in the logistics center; the pay was minimum youth wage, but if you picked more than 600 articles/day, you got paid extra and working at night you got extra on top of that. I worked like crazy and made, again, a lot more than the regular adult local/white workers who worked super slow and usually didn't make close to 600. The immigrants and me worked our asses off to make more; most Dutch guys (no girls; it was too heavy to carry most boxes) refused to. If these jobs would be per hour, I don't think anyone would want to do them well at all. We did them well because it made more money; if you get crap per hour, you wouldn't want them but poor immigrants still do and they work hard to keep them. There are shows on UK television where these angry (usually racist / Daily Mail readers) people get offered jobs they say 'immigrants took their jooobbss' and they film them; it always ends with them getting fired as they find it too heavy (start holding their backs after 2 hours because they are out of shape) and find the breaks too short, don't have discipline etc. Is that not the same in the US in many of these cases? Like theoretically US workers want those jobs but in practice they just mess them up or don't even want them?

rtpg 11y ago

Another reason this exploitation works: guest worker visas can't be transferred to another place of employment. So you're paying a price to be in the country that shouldn't need to be paid.