4 ms·

Yes, plenty of people want to work in the mediocre circumstances of the US labor market, but only because they come out of a war torn or impoverished country.

Yes, plenty of people want to work in the mediocre circumstances of the US labor market, but only because they come out of a war torn or impoverished country. No sane US citizen wants to work their ass off for minimum wage and minimum benefits. And why would they? Why give away your precious limited time for free, so some corp. can benefit from it? Employment is supposed to be a situation with mutual benefit for employer and employee. Flooding the labor market with cheap work force that doesn't complain when you break their backs is exactly what will worsen the situation. What we need is LESS people that are happy to have their backs broken for peanuts. And unions might help achieving that. Employers need to come up with better compensation. THAT is the only rational thing that should happen right now. And the tighter the labor market, the earlier that will happen.

jillesvangurp 4y ago
The US could of course choose to be more like Europe in that regard. But you should know that Europe has the exact same challenges for the exact same reasons. People don't want to be nurses or harvest strawberries or do anything that is a combination of under-payed and hard. That work gets done by people willing to do the work. There are lots of seasonal workers from Eastern Europe that show up to do that work in e.g. Germany and the Netherlands, lots of foreign nurses and doctors as well. The UK decided that it did not want to be in Europe anymore and now it has a labor shortage. Because it literally closed the borders for that labor to enter the market that until recently was able to travel and work there.
- badpun 4y ago
  Yep. Migrant labor is basically exploitation of the poor by the (comparably) richer societes. There are estimated a couple hundreds of thousands of Polish women in Western Europe (mostly in Germany) who are live-in nurses/maids for elderly people who can no longer live by themselves. They get paid a pittance by local standard for such a hard and often humiliating labor. Same for foreigners doing construction labor etc. This way, a typical German of Frenchman can have a semi-slave doing cheap construction for them or taking care of their aging parent, so they don't have to. Without the migrants, these people would never afford such services, and their standard of living would be in effect much lower. Interestingly, a lot of people don't see it that way - I guess you still have to be middle-class to afford a Eastern European economic slave, so working class being don't benefit from that - and, at the same time, the migrants are lowering wages for the jobs that they do.
  - chii 4y ago
    But it's not exploitation if the participants are willingly choosing the option. The immigrant worker receives a higher pay doing what you call "humiliating labour", than they could in their own country. If this continues, at some point, the wealth of the migrant would increase, and eventually, they will also demand a higher wage. This will mean that wealth of the wealthier country hiring migrant workers will slowly osmose. This is what seems to be happening in china (where labour is slowly becoming more expensive overtime - not to the point where outsourcing is not worth it, but many companies are looking at south eastern asian countries as a new source of cheap labour). The only scenario in which this breaks down is when the migrant is defrauded like those in Quatar and Dubai, where they are indeed treated as slaves by having their passport confiscated etc.
    - badpun 4y ago
      > But it's not exploitation if the participants are willingly choosing the option. That's some very technical/amoral understanding of exploitation (I guess this kind of thinking helps many people in the West sleep at night. Whilst the reality is that our standard of living is only made possible via other people's suffering). Consider a scenario: a guy goes for a stroll into a forest, has a heart attack there and needs immediate help. I see him and propose "I will call for help only if you will work for me for free for the next 10 years.". Of course, he willingly obliges. In your book, is that exploitation or not? > The immigrant worker receives a higher pay doing what you call "humiliating labour" It's what most people would call "humiliating labour". The old people these pseudo-nurses have to take care of curse at them, treat them as their slaves, make sexual advances towards them etc. All the while they're required to be in their house 24/7, sometimes with a Sunday afternoon off. It's arguably worse than prison, all for the privilege of earning 1600 euros per month (while being locked up in somebody's house in a foreign country, 1000 km from your family).
      - chii 4y ago
        > In your book, is that exploitation or not? the law has something to say about that - a person under duress can void the contract they sign as they are not of sound mind (and dying due to a heart attack could be easily construed as under duress). But a migrant who considered their options, not under duress (except the "duress" of unemployment in their own country), and chose to work overseas to earn more than they could at home, is not really exploitation. > The old people these pseudo-nurses have to take care of curse at them ... It's arguably worse than prison they could leave the job, and probably should if they feel mistreated. I don't doubt that there's bad apples and there are migrants who feel they are "stuck" with not much other choice but to "take it". I really don't believe that they are stuck - and if it was due to lack of education and knowledge of possible choices they can take (for example, dobbing on employers who mistreat them), they would - and this is a lack of regulatory safeguards etc.

jillesvangurp 4y ago

The US could of course choose to be more like Europe in that regard. But you should know that Europe has the exact same challenges for the exact same reasons. People don't want to be nurses or harvest strawberries or do anything that is a combination of under-payed and hard. That work gets done by people willing to do the work. There are lots of seasonal workers from Eastern Europe that show up to do that work in e.g. Germany and the Netherlands, lots of foreign nurses and doctors as well. The UK decided that it did not want to be in Europe anymore and now it has a labor shortage. Because it literally closed the borders for that labor to enter the market that until recently was able to travel and work there.

badpun 4y ago
Yep. Migrant labor is basically exploitation of the poor by the (comparably) richer societes. There are estimated a couple hundreds of thousands of Polish women in Western Europe (mostly in Germany) who are live-in nurses/maids for elderly people who can no longer live by themselves. They get paid a pittance by local standard for such a hard and often humiliating labor. Same for foreigners doing construction labor etc. This way, a typical German of Frenchman can have a semi-slave doing cheap construction for them or taking care of their aging parent, so they don't have to. Without the migrants, these people would never afford such services, and their standard of living would be in effect much lower. Interestingly, a lot of people don't see it that way - I guess you still have to be middle-class to afford a Eastern European economic slave, so working class being don't benefit from that - and, at the same time, the migrants are lowering wages for the jobs that they do.
- chii 4y ago
  But it's not exploitation if the participants are willingly choosing the option. The immigrant worker receives a higher pay doing what you call "humiliating labour", than they could in their own country. If this continues, at some point, the wealth of the migrant would increase, and eventually, they will also demand a higher wage. This will mean that wealth of the wealthier country hiring migrant workers will slowly osmose. This is what seems to be happening in china (where labour is slowly becoming more expensive overtime - not to the point where outsourcing is not worth it, but many companies are looking at south eastern asian countries as a new source of cheap labour). The only scenario in which this breaks down is when the migrant is defrauded like those in Quatar and Dubai, where they are indeed treated as slaves by having their passport confiscated etc.
  - badpun 4y ago
    > But it's not exploitation if the participants are willingly choosing the option. That's some very technical/amoral understanding of exploitation (I guess this kind of thinking helps many people in the West sleep at night. Whilst the reality is that our standard of living is only made possible via other people's suffering). Consider a scenario: a guy goes for a stroll into a forest, has a heart attack there and needs immediate help. I see him and propose "I will call for help only if you will work for me for free for the next 10 years.". Of course, he willingly obliges. In your book, is that exploitation or not? > The immigrant worker receives a higher pay doing what you call "humiliating labour" It's what most people would call "humiliating labour". The old people these pseudo-nurses have to take care of curse at them, treat them as their slaves, make sexual advances towards them etc. All the while they're required to be in their house 24/7, sometimes with a Sunday afternoon off. It's arguably worse than prison, all for the privilege of earning 1600 euros per month (while being locked up in somebody's house in a foreign country, 1000 km from your family).
    - chii 4y ago
      > In your book, is that exploitation or not? the law has something to say about that - a person under duress can void the contract they sign as they are not of sound mind (and dying due to a heart attack could be easily construed as under duress). But a migrant who considered their options, not under duress (except the "duress" of unemployment in their own country), and chose to work overseas to earn more than they could at home, is not really exploitation. > The old people these pseudo-nurses have to take care of curse at them ... It's arguably worse than prison they could leave the job, and probably should if they feel mistreated. I don't doubt that there's bad apples and there are migrants who feel they are "stuck" with not much other choice but to "take it". I really don't believe that they are stuck - and if it was due to lack of education and knowledge of possible choices they can take (for example, dobbing on employers who mistreat them), they would - and this is a lack of regulatory safeguards etc.