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That’s how it should work, and that’s why wages have remained suppressed in our country for so long. In my area is a large turkey processing plant - if you ever

That’s how it should work, and that’s why wages have remained suppressed in our country for so long. In my area is a large turkey processing plant - if you ever eat turkey there’s a good chance you’ve eaten something from there. I’m in Minnesota. Inside the plant is cold, wet, incredibly loud even with earmuffs, and the workers are doing repetitive tasks all day. In the 80s, it was a crappy job that paid well. Local people (including my mom) worked there as a sacrifice to get more money and get ahead. After that, they discovered they could keep the pay low if they hired on people that didn’t have a better option - illegal immigrants. There was literally a sign advertising for people to come to that town of 20,000 at the Mexican border. But then they had to stop doing that, both for presumably legal reasons and because Mexicans have integrated and have better options. It just so worked out that our state started importing “refugees” from Somalia at the same time. I’ve been in the plant a couple of times myself. There are literally no base-level workers that aren’t immigrants. None. In rural Minnesota. This has suppressed wages for our area as a whole for decades. It’s a huge plant - if they already had to pay people $20 or $25 instead of what they do now just imagine the ripple effect that would have on the local economy.

BoiledCabbage 5y ago
It's a great point you make above, and reflects a lot of a wave of change in our country over the past 40 years. The analysis of meat packing goes one level deeper and according to the US govt has an additional cause: > Industry consolidation has been accompanied by important changes in labor relations in meatpacking. In 1980, 46 percent of workers in the meat products industry were union members, a figure that had remained stable through the 1970’s. Most unionized slaughter plant workers belonged to the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, whose base wage rate was $10.69 an hour in 1982. In that year, many unionized firms began to press for large reductions in base wages, to $8.25 an hour, consistent with what was being offered in non-union plants. The union at first acceded to wage cuts, but by 1984 adopted a strategy to vigorously contest them, in the view that large wage cuts at older unionized plants only postponed plant closings. Between 1983 and 1986, there were 158 work stoppages in cattle and hog slaughter plants, involving 40,000 workers. There were lengthy strikes, plant closings, and deunionizations at some ongoing and reopened plants.14 By 1987, union membership had fallen to 21 percent of the workforce, and has remained at that lower level through the most recent data (1997); wage reductions were imposed in most plants, and wages have risen only modestly since then. > Declining unionization coincided with changes in slaughter plant demographics. Immigrants, primarily from Southeast Asia, Mexico, and Central America, make up large and growing shares of the workforces at both hog and cattle slaughter plants. There was a structural shift in power between workers and corporations. Unions representing the worker who had pushed for those higher wages were fairly systematically pushed out of power. The loss of power of unions is what led to the low wages. The use of immigrant labor is just the particular method companies went about implementing it, but if there hadn't been people immigrating it still would've been forced low wages by the corporations. This is evidenced by the fact that the low-wages began in the non-union corporations. A lot of people look at this same situation and mistake the cause for the effect. The cause of the situation was a huge shift in power away from workers to corporations via the loss of union power. The particular manifestation of how corporations used that power was by changing who they were hiring, but to be clear even without immigrants, wages would've still fallen as they already were doing. Ie if unions had negotiated and maintained a minimum wage of $10 or $12 it's irrelevant where the people they're hiring come from. 1. https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/41108/18003_aer785d_1_.pdf?v=41061 https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/41108/18003_ae...
- qwytw 5y ago
  It's not obvious to me that huge growth in immigration starting the mid/late in 1970's accompanied with the increase in international trade were not the main reasons why labor unions lost most of their power. As soon as companies were able to bypass the unions by hiring "cheap" immigrants or by altogether moving/outsourcing manufacturing to other companies they were doomed. While outsourcing was probably not the most significant factor in the meat packaging industry (or food/agriculture industries in general) the decrease in high-paying jobs with low entry barriers in other manufacturing sectors still allowed companies to decrease wages. I don't really see how any attempt to prop up the unions without introducing prohibitive tariffs would have resulted in anything but American companies becoming totally uncompetitive (this mostly happened anyway, though...).
  - bobthepanda 5y ago
    Immigration relaxation actually starts in the ‘60s so it doesn’t quite match up with your timeline. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_of_1965 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_... We do have an example of an industry that was protected by tariffs: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax. For the most part Volkswagen, Toyota and friends are still doing fantastically in the US.
    - qwytw 5y ago
      Volkswagen & Toyota are doing great however their workers are being paid less in real terms than they would had been in the 1970s despite modern car factories being significantly more productive. And this is not surprising because they are competing with workers currently working other industries which are not protected by tariffs. According to https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/immigrant-population-over-time https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/imm... immigration didn't start growing until ~1970 and it increased significantly in the 1980's and later.
      - bobthepanda 5y ago
fastball 5y ago
Of course, why else do you think corporately bought-and-paid-for dems think immigration should basically be open borders? Probably the largest anti-strong-borders people are Big Ag. The people that actually care about the workers at the bottom of the totem pole (Bernie Sanders mostly) were strongly against such policies until the increasingly polarized nature of our politics made it untenable to be on the "left" and not pro-endless-immigration. Don't get me wrong, I'm not generally in favor of protectionism and think our immigration system could use a bit of renovation, but anyone who pretends that low wages is just corporate America being mean and stealing profits for themselves without also acknowledging the impact of importing massive amounts of unskilled labor is being disingenuous at best.
dkdk8283 5y ago
America should prioritize legal workers. Expel all of the illegal immigrants and force corporations to step up and pay livable wages.
- imtringued 5y ago
  Or just legalize them so they can ask for higher wages.
- chillwaves 5y ago
  Expel the illegal immigrants? How? Seems easier to just put real penalties for corporations that exploit unauthorized workers.
  - anovikov 5y ago
    How about just starting to check papers in the streets and immediately detain and deport the illegals? What's hard about it? It's done here in Europe - you have very few illegals (some legal refugees who at times get annoying, but yet, they are all accounted for).
    - satyrnein 5y ago
      Thankfully, it is perfectly legal for a citizen to walk down the street in America without carrying any papers, so not having any papers does not prove anything.
      - Judgmentality 5y ago
        However, it is perfectly normal for a police officer to pick up a person just for walking down the street in America without carrying any papers, and once that person is held for 48 hours (which they can do without filing any charges) ICE can easily come and deport somebody.
        anovikov 5y ago
vasco 5y ago
I'm all for good wages, but why was it OK for your mom to trade worse conditions for a salary that was on the higher end of what she could get in the 80s but it is not OK for Mexicans or Somalians to do the same now? Yes the pay is lower, but presumably these people are getting attracted by those signs at the border and make the decision to put up with these conditions to better their lot in life, the same way your mom did. I wish everyone could get a great salary and mostly that work conditions provide a safe environment for all workers, but I don't understand your argument unless I see it under the light of "foreigners = bad"
- tolbish 5y ago
  I read it as "Lying that you can't afford to pay local workers a decent living wage = bad"
- rsj_hn 5y ago
  > "but it is not OK for Mexicans or Somalians to do the same now" No one is arguing that Mexicans and Somalians don't have a right to leave their current employer and find a better employer. Oh, but you are talking about illegally entering another country they have no legal right to enter, which is a very different situation. Forcing yourself on a country where the citizens have decided to not allow you to enter is not the same thing as just looking for a higher paying employer. If you want open borders and believe that borders are immoral and citizens of a nation do not have the right to decide who is and is not allowed to be a fellow citizen, then argue for open borders and a one world government in which no nation has the ability to control who crosses their border and who can participate in their legal, production, electoral, and social insurance system. That is an intellectual position that a small minority holds, but make the case for denying citizens of a nation this right of self-determination and autonomy clearly and directly, don't couch it in the language of someone looking to switch employers. And then don't wring your hands that a nation has deteriorating solidarity and social insurance when you simultaneously advocate for citizenship having no meaning.
  - vasco 5y ago
    I'm not arguing about anything related to borders. If someone is working a non-remote job, I assume they are a local worker. What the comment I replied to based their argument on is that certain people should have the freedom choose to trade work conditions for higher wages to improve their lives, but other people shouldn't. The classification that was given for that distinction was on the basis of nationality or refugee status, read Mexicans and Somalians.
crooked-v 5y ago
What's with the scare quotes on 'refugees'? There are a lot of obvious reasons to settle newly displaced refugees somewhere they can get reliable low-skill jobs without having to look far.
- lobotryas 5y ago
  Because there is a belief, not unfounded, that some portion of refugees (percentage depends on party affiliation) are lying about their situation and are actually just economic migrants.
  - botwriter 5y ago
    in the uk the ones crossing channel all seem to be fighting age males.
  - lokar 5y ago
    And what if they are? How is that justification for vilification?
    - Supermancho 5y ago
      > vilification Quotes are often used on posts in lieu of sic when it's not just a quote, but a term that is likely being misused. eg Identifying misrepresentation of circumstance is not "villification".
kirillzubovsky 5y ago
The price of turkey would go up, people will stop buying as much of it, kids in schools would go hungry. Eventually pig farmers will figure out a way to make pork-based-turkey, hire those workers, feed the kids, and overtake the turkey market. The demand for turkey will dry out, the plan will do a few rounds of layoffs and eventually shut down. As the result, people in town will lose jobs, will stop paying rent, will lose homes and move to a better place with more opportunities. Supply and demand is a wonderfully simple system that regulates itself, and as much as it sounds appealing, us messing with it will only make things worse.
- CyberDildonics 5y ago
  Did you really just say that kids in schools would go hungry if a turkey factory paid enough that locals would work there? Did children go hungry in the 80s when this person says that the turkey factory paid people well?
- NegativeLatency 5y ago
  If you can’t pay your workers fairly and remain solvent then that’s not a business I want to exist.
- Jarwain 5y ago
  That's a pretty big leap, from people not buying as much turkey to kids in school going hungry. Sure supply and demand would state that if the price goes up, demand goes down. What it Doesn't state is how much demand will go down, whether that decrease in demand Actually offsets the increase in price, or whether total revenue stays net neutral. Whole swathes of people wouldn't just stop buying turkey if the price went up a few cents, or maybe even tens of cents (but this is speculation, I'm not sure if anyone's published the numbers on how much the price of turkey would have to increase to support a higher wage). But people buy turkey over pork for a number of lifestyle reasons, too. Suppy and demand is more of a model than a system. It's not perfect, no model is, but it's useful. But life is a lot more complicated than a simple model
question000 5y ago
This American Life did an episode about these plants and debunked the "Mexican billboard" lie.
- AuryGlenz 5y ago
  If it's the one I found they're talking about a different town. That said I certainly haven't verified the sign, though I do remember seeing an image of it somewhere a long, long time ago. Not pre-Photoshop but definitely before it's usage was common.
  - question000 5y ago
    I just think people are lying about it because, you know, it was proven that they did and also fundamentally it makes no sense as the truth.

BoiledCabbage 5y ago

It's a great point you make above, and reflects a lot of a wave of change in our country over the past 40 years. The analysis of meat packing goes one level deeper and according to the US govt has an additional cause: > Industry consolidation has been accompanied by important changes in labor relations in meatpacking. In 1980, 46 percent of workers in the meat products industry were union members, a figure that had remained stable through the 1970’s. Most unionized slaughter plant workers belonged to the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) union, whose base wage rate was $10.69 an hour in 1982. In that year, many unionized firms began to press for large reductions in base wages, to $8.25 an hour, consistent with what was being offered in non-union plants. The union at first acceded to wage cuts, but by 1984 adopted a strategy to vigorously contest them, in the view that large wage cuts at older unionized plants only postponed plant closings. Between 1983 and 1986, there were 158 work stoppages in cattle and hog slaughter plants, involving 40,000 workers. There were lengthy strikes, plant closings, and deunionizations at some ongoing and reopened plants.14 By 1987, union membership had fallen to 21 percent of the workforce, and has remained at that lower level through the most recent data (1997); wage reductions were imposed in most plants, and wages have risen only modestly since then. > Declining unionization coincided with changes in slaughter plant demographics. Immigrants, primarily from Southeast Asia, Mexico, and Central America, make up large and growing shares of the workforces at both hog and cattle slaughter plants. There was a structural shift in power between workers and corporations. Unions representing the worker who had pushed for those higher wages were fairly systematically pushed out of power. The loss of power of unions is what led to the low wages. The use of immigrant labor is just the particular method companies went about implementing it, but if there hadn't been people immigrating it still would've been forced low wages by the corporations. This is evidenced by the fact that the low-wages began in the non-union corporations. A lot of people look at this same situation and mistake the cause for the effect. The cause of the situation was a huge shift in power away from workers to corporations via the loss of union power. The particular manifestation of how corporations used that power was by changing who they were hiring, but to be clear even without immigrants, wages would've still fallen as they already were doing. Ie if unions had negotiated and maintained a minimum wage of $10 or $12 it's irrelevant where the people they're hiring come from. 1. https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/41108/18003_aer785d_1_.pdf?v=41061 https://www.ers.usda.gov/webdocs/publications/41108/18003_ae...

qwytw 5y ago
It's not obvious to me that huge growth in immigration starting the mid/late in 1970's accompanied with the increase in international trade were not the main reasons why labor unions lost most of their power. As soon as companies were able to bypass the unions by hiring "cheap" immigrants or by altogether moving/outsourcing manufacturing to other companies they were doomed. While outsourcing was probably not the most significant factor in the meat packaging industry (or food/agriculture industries in general) the decrease in high-paying jobs with low entry barriers in other manufacturing sectors still allowed companies to decrease wages. I don't really see how any attempt to prop up the unions without introducing prohibitive tariffs would have resulted in anything but American companies becoming totally uncompetitive (this mostly happened anyway, though...).
- bobthepanda 5y ago
  Immigration relaxation actually starts in the ‘60s so it doesn’t quite match up with your timeline. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_Act_of_1965 https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_and_Nationality_... We do have an example of an industry that was protected by tariffs: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_tax. For the most part Volkswagen, Toyota and friends are still doing fantastically in the US.
  - qwytw 5y ago
    Volkswagen & Toyota are doing great however their workers are being paid less in real terms than they would had been in the 1970s despite modern car factories being significantly more productive. And this is not surprising because they are competing with workers currently working other industries which are not protected by tariffs. According to https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/immigrant-population-over-time https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/imm... immigration didn't start growing until ~1970 and it increased significantly in the 1980's and later.
    - bobthepanda 5y ago

fastball 5y ago

Of course, why else do you think corporately bought-and-paid-for dems think immigration should basically be open borders? Probably the largest anti-strong-borders people are Big Ag. The people that actually care about the workers at the bottom of the totem pole (Bernie Sanders mostly) were strongly against such policies until the increasingly polarized nature of our politics made it untenable to be on the "left" and not pro-endless-immigration. Don't get me wrong, I'm not generally in favor of protectionism and think our immigration system could use a bit of renovation, but anyone who pretends that low wages is just corporate America being mean and stealing profits for themselves without also acknowledging the impact of importing massive amounts of unskilled labor is being disingenuous at best.

dkdk8283 5y ago

America should prioritize legal workers. Expel all of the illegal immigrants and force corporations to step up and pay livable wages.

imtringued 5y ago
Or just legalize them so they can ask for higher wages.
chillwaves 5y ago
Expel the illegal immigrants? How? Seems easier to just put real penalties for corporations that exploit unauthorized workers.
- anovikov 5y ago
  How about just starting to check papers in the streets and immediately detain and deport the illegals? What's hard about it? It's done here in Europe - you have very few illegals (some legal refugees who at times get annoying, but yet, they are all accounted for).
  - satyrnein 5y ago
    Thankfully, it is perfectly legal for a citizen to walk down the street in America without carrying any papers, so not having any papers does not prove anything.
    - Judgmentality 5y ago
      However, it is perfectly normal for a police officer to pick up a person just for walking down the street in America without carrying any papers, and once that person is held for 48 hours (which they can do without filing any charges) ICE can easily come and deport somebody.
      - anovikov 5y ago

vasco 5y ago

I'm all for good wages, but why was it OK for your mom to trade worse conditions for a salary that was on the higher end of what she could get in the 80s but it is not OK for Mexicans or Somalians to do the same now? Yes the pay is lower, but presumably these people are getting attracted by those signs at the border and make the decision to put up with these conditions to better their lot in life, the same way your mom did. I wish everyone could get a great salary and mostly that work conditions provide a safe environment for all workers, but I don't understand your argument unless I see it under the light of "foreigners = bad"

tolbish 5y ago
I read it as "Lying that you can't afford to pay local workers a decent living wage = bad"
rsj_hn 5y ago
> "but it is not OK for Mexicans or Somalians to do the same now" No one is arguing that Mexicans and Somalians don't have a right to leave their current employer and find a better employer. Oh, but you are talking about illegally entering another country they have no legal right to enter, which is a very different situation. Forcing yourself on a country where the citizens have decided to not allow you to enter is not the same thing as just looking for a higher paying employer. If you want open borders and believe that borders are immoral and citizens of a nation do not have the right to decide who is and is not allowed to be a fellow citizen, then argue for open borders and a one world government in which no nation has the ability to control who crosses their border and who can participate in their legal, production, electoral, and social insurance system. That is an intellectual position that a small minority holds, but make the case for denying citizens of a nation this right of self-determination and autonomy clearly and directly, don't couch it in the language of someone looking to switch employers. And then don't wring your hands that a nation has deteriorating solidarity and social insurance when you simultaneously advocate for citizenship having no meaning.
- vasco 5y ago
  I'm not arguing about anything related to borders. If someone is working a non-remote job, I assume they are a local worker. What the comment I replied to based their argument on is that certain people should have the freedom choose to trade work conditions for higher wages to improve their lives, but other people shouldn't. The classification that was given for that distinction was on the basis of nationality or refugee status, read Mexicans and Somalians.

crooked-v 5y ago

What's with the scare quotes on 'refugees'? There are a lot of obvious reasons to settle newly displaced refugees somewhere they can get reliable low-skill jobs without having to look far.

lobotryas 5y ago
Because there is a belief, not unfounded, that some portion of refugees (percentage depends on party affiliation) are lying about their situation and are actually just economic migrants.
- botwriter 5y ago
  in the uk the ones crossing channel all seem to be fighting age males.
- lokar 5y ago
  And what if they are? How is that justification for vilification?
  - Supermancho 5y ago
    > vilification Quotes are often used on posts in lieu of sic when it's not just a quote, but a term that is likely being misused. eg Identifying misrepresentation of circumstance is not "villification".

kirillzubovsky 5y ago

The price of turkey would go up, people will stop buying as much of it, kids in schools would go hungry. Eventually pig farmers will figure out a way to make pork-based-turkey, hire those workers, feed the kids, and overtake the turkey market. The demand for turkey will dry out, the plan will do a few rounds of layoffs and eventually shut down. As the result, people in town will lose jobs, will stop paying rent, will lose homes and move to a better place with more opportunities. Supply and demand is a wonderfully simple system that regulates itself, and as much as it sounds appealing, us messing with it will only make things worse.

CyberDildonics 5y ago
Did you really just say that kids in schools would go hungry if a turkey factory paid enough that locals would work there? Did children go hungry in the 80s when this person says that the turkey factory paid people well?
NegativeLatency 5y ago
If you can’t pay your workers fairly and remain solvent then that’s not a business I want to exist.
Jarwain 5y ago
That's a pretty big leap, from people not buying as much turkey to kids in school going hungry. Sure supply and demand would state that if the price goes up, demand goes down. What it Doesn't state is how much demand will go down, whether that decrease in demand Actually offsets the increase in price, or whether total revenue stays net neutral. Whole swathes of people wouldn't just stop buying turkey if the price went up a few cents, or maybe even tens of cents (but this is speculation, I'm not sure if anyone's published the numbers on how much the price of turkey would have to increase to support a higher wage). But people buy turkey over pork for a number of lifestyle reasons, too. Suppy and demand is more of a model than a system. It's not perfect, no model is, but it's useful. But life is a lot more complicated than a simple model

question000 5y ago

This American Life did an episode about these plants and debunked the "Mexican billboard" lie.

AuryGlenz 5y ago
If it's the one I found they're talking about a different town. That said I certainly haven't verified the sign, though I do remember seeing an image of it somewhere a long, long time ago. Not pre-Photoshop but definitely before it's usage was common.
- question000 5y ago
  I just think people are lying about it because, you know, it was proven that they did and also fundamentally it makes no sense as the truth.