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Job-thieving, wage-depressing illegals

12/24/01

Ahoy,

In the Omaha Nebraska area I hear the old-timers tell of the times 20 years ago and more when workers at the packing plants earned enough to live the American Dream: buy a home, a car, raise a family on the man's wage while the wife, if she chose, could stay home and raise the kids. Nowadays the people working in those packing plants do NOT buy homes and raise a family on the one wage. What's changed? Well..... across the board America's blue-collar workers have taken an economic beating over the years. Look at US Census Bureau data.... the story is told there. Also, there is the fact that millions of ILLEGAL aliens DO drive wages down.

Reading a recent article I read where one of the lackeys of the meat industry said this:

""Our industry has relied on immigrants through the past century, and we continue to rely on immigrant labor," Riley said. "It's a great first job for immigrant workers. The wages are relatively high for unskilled labor coming to the US.. The average wage in a packing plant is $10.81 an hour." "

Whoaaaa!!!!! Wait a minute!!!!!!! $10.81 per hour average. What wages are being averaged? Is the CEO of the firm's salary being averaged in? Are the wages of the executives being averaged in? It doesn't take too many people earning hundreds-of-thousands or more dollars per year to bump an average up up up!!!!! I'd like to know the average pay of the workers on the line... legal and illegal.

I'm sure the higher-ups in the meat industry support the capitalistic system; especially the CEOs and higher executives who earn as much in a year as a typical worker takes decades or longer to earn. Yet, if they revel in the wonders of capitalism why do they usurp the system by using illegal alien workers? The illegals should not be in America to tilt the labor/job balance towards the benefit of the employer. If those owning and running the meat industry, making their BIG bucks, truly support America and our economic system they should make every effort to NOT hire illegal aliens. Since they do, either purposefully or by omission, why should they deserve the right to reap the benefits of our economic system. When they do it is a slap in the face of every law-abiding American worker in America.... doubly so for those that went overseas to protect the system they are abusing to amass their wealth. From my point of view all employers that knowingly hire an illegal alien are a traitor to America and its citizens. Perhaps we should export them along with the all-too-few illegal alien invaders we do apprehend.

Scott K.
Omaha Nebraska