🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <gilbert-3011942352000001@blv-pm3-ip1.halcyon.com>
gilbert@halcyon.com (John Gilbert) writes:
   Exactly.  If they were legal, wouldn't they, and the employers, be
   better off?  What is the importance of keeping the current arrangement
   illegal?
You don't get it. If through ANY means it was insured that only legal
residents worked at these jobs---even if it meant opening the
immigration floodgates---suddenly, these employers would be FORCED
to bring working conditions and wages up to the same standards of
any other unionized, unskilled labor. BINGO, suddenly it's attractive
for American citizens to work in these jobs, and we'll want to
keep the immigrants out again because it will be immediately obvious
that they take jobs Americans want.

So the point is, you claim that these are jobs no American wants.  I
claim they DO want them, just not at the slave-driving wages and
working conditions that a typical migrant farm worker must experience.
Such conditions should be illegal to foist on ANY resident of this
country.

   > No. Food is so incredibly cheap in this country that we can enjoy a
   > healthy increase in the cost of produce before the country suffers.
   And what good does that bring?
Ummm, it preserves our country's moral fiber? It does what's RIGHT?
Are you that fixated on saving a buck? Slaves used to really keep
the cost of cotton farming low; would you like to reinstate slavery?

   > The savings produced by allowing a group of people to assume
   > second-class status and work in conditions no American would stand
   > is NOT worth the extra quarter or so it might save me on my
   > orange juice.
   Why not?  Bear in mind, I am talking about an IMPROVEMENT in their working
   conditions.
Let's see, an improvement from abominable to dismal? Not good enough.
If we can't offer them jobs at legal American wages and legal American
working conditions, we shouldn't offer them at all. And I simply
disagree that the current status quo is acceptable.

Ever heard of the call to boycott grapes? The claim is that farm
workers, many of them illegals, are exposed to---sometimes even
SPRAYED with---toxic pesticides, all in the name of getting a cheap
grape on our table. No legal American resident with any legal union
behind them would accept such conditions.

   >    This could also relieve the lack-of-power situation
   >    with the workers.
   > So could insuring that only legal workers have those jobs.
   Which is why making them legal workers sounds like a reasonable thing.
See argument above.

   If the cost of the strawberries I grow doubles, will I sell more, or
   less of them?
It depends what you charge, of course. But, in general, you will
sell the same amount of food, because we suddenly didn't get
less hungry.
   
  If I sell less of them, then is this better?
Absolutely, if that higher cost allows workers to work in humane,
and legal working conditions and at legal wages.

   Will the
   same number of farmers be able to compete, and will the same number
   of workers have jobs?  If not, why is this a better thing?
   Just how is it that economic factors drive people out of business?
I don't believe it will drive a significant number of people out
of a job or out of business, plain and simple.,

   Er, how _drastic_ did I claim it would be?

Well, I don't claim anyone would be driven out of business, for one.
I claim that the increase in price simply won't be high enough to
drive farmers out of business. They'll raise their prices, sure, but
people still have to eat, right? And I don't think the price increase
is going to be that drastic.
--
Michael C. Grant           Information Systems Laboratory, Stanford University
mcgrant@isl.stanford.edu       <A HREF="http://www-isl.stanford.edu/~mcgrant">
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