Sirotablog
David Sirota is a political journalist and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist at Creators Syndicate. David writes about political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America's political parties.
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June 2, 2008 2:30 PM
What part of "worker exploitation" don't you understand?
If you're like me, you've had it up to here with the refrain of "what part of illegal don't you understand" from right-wingers trying to use the immigration debate to distract hard-working Americans from the structural reasons behind their ongoing economic woes.
Rather than running scared from this simple-minded chorus of xenophobia, it's high time progressives stood up and called a spade a spade. Allowing immigration status to be used as an excuse to exploit workers is not only morally wrong, it's bad for other workers. Standing by while hundreds of working parents are rounded up like cattle, separated from their children, and detained for days to weeks without regard for due process is not only cowardly, it's un-American.
Instead of tolerating the completely impractical solution of deporting 14 million undocumented immigrants, we need to come up with practical plans for integrating them into our society and helping them continue contributing to a national economy that they are already propping up. In the meantime, we need to make sure that the hysterical calls for cracking down on "illegal" immigrants doesn't continue to victimize the very same class of "legal" workers that the crack-down is putatively intended to protect.
Fortunately, a few enlightened state leaders in Iowa are taking some moderate but laudable steps toward achieving this agenda.
An article in Monday's Des Moines Register threw some much-deserved attention toward a new proposal to use wage enforcement as a way of cracking down on the rampant practice of worker exploitation that for too long has been the elephant in the room of the national immigration debate. The bill, sponsored by Iowa Senate Majority leader Michael Gronstal and House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, would raise penalties for violating minimum wage laws and for improperly classifying employees as independent contractors in order to avoid reporting their wages for the purposes of taxation and worker's comp payments.
These measures are particularly welcome coming from Iowa, which this May was the site of the this year's largest immigration raid in the tiny manufacturing town of Postville.
As has been well documented by now, the Agriprocessors meatpacking plant targeted in the raid had been for years the site of atrocious worker exploitation. In a recent piece on Alternet, Joshua Holland provides a shocking laundry list of the abuses (thanks to Kyle at Citizen Orange for the link):
The AP reported that the plant's management "improperly withheld money from employees' paychecks for 'immigration fees,' didn't allow workers to use the restroom during 10-hour shifts, physically abused workers and didn't compensate them for overtime work."
According to MSNBC, workers at the plant were routinely started at $5 per hour for their first three or four months on the job and then raised to $6, still well below Iowa's minimum wage of $7.25.
Iowa Labor Commissioner David Neil confirmed to the Des Moines Register that Agriprocessors was being investigated by the state on suspicion of wage violations, paying people off the books and hiring underage workers. A copy of the federal warrant obtained by the Register described an incident in which "a supervisor covered the eyes of an employee with duct tape and struck him with a meat hook."
This is to say nothing of the manner in which the nearly 400 workers targeted in the raid were literally rounded up like cattle and taken to the Waterloo National Cattle Congress, where they were subjected to mass trials in which 85 people were sentenced in one day, some receiving as much as 5 year prison sentences for the minor infraction of using fake identification. Or the fact that no charges have been brought against Agriprocessors for their leveraging the immigration status of some of their employees as an excuse to create abominable working conditions for all of their employees. Or the chilling effect that the deportations have had on the United Food and Commercial Worker's attempts to organize the Agriprocessors work force. Or the fact that responsible employers who don't abuse their workers but who want to avoid future raids will in all likelihood avoid hiring immigrant workers regardless of their immigration status, while those same immigrants flee the region, leaving a vacuum in local economies.
What the raids call to our attention, is that workers -- documented and undocumented, immigrant and non-immigrant alike -- are the real victims in the current broken immigration system. What the proposed Iowa legislation dares to do is shift the blame from the victims of this exploitation onto its perpetrators.
As Gronstal says in the Register article:
We think the real cause of this problem isn't people who are trying to seek a better life for themselves and their family. The real cause is companies that deliberately use immigrant labor to drive down wages and cut corners and save money.
At PSN, we've been making this argument for a long time.
In the current debate, the Lou Dobbses of the world have been remarkably successful at pushing a populist message that preys on working families' justifiable anxieties about disappearing jobs and shrinking wages and redirects those anxieties against their fellow workers. As progressives, we need to stand up and insist that these anxieties be redirected toward their proper targets: toward the corporate race to the bottom that is shipping jobs over seas to workers who can be exploited in other countries; toward the cynical business practices that leverage fear of deportation to illegally drive down wages in our own country.
We need to start making the case, in plain and simple terms, that legalizing the immigrant work force is the clearest road forward to raising wages for all workers. We need to start making the case that integrating immigrants into our communities is not only more humane but also more practical and economically sensible than scapegoating and then deporting them. We need to move away from the rhetoric of division posing as "American" values and toward the truly American ideals of dignity, inclusiveness, and respect for hard work that most of the country shares.
In the meantime, we need to throw as much support as possible behind the brave state legislators who are daring to buck the trend of racist anti-immigrant sentiment and take important steps toward reframing the immigration debate on sensible terms.
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About David Sirota
David Sirota is a political journalist and nationally syndicated newspaper columnist at Creators Syndicate. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Hostile Takeover. He lives in Denver, Colorado. His daily blog can be found at CREDO Action. He contributes regularly to the Denver Post's Web site, is a senior editor at In These Times magazine and is working on his second book. He has been profiled in Newsweek and the Rocky Mountain News and is widely known for his reporting on political corruption, globalization and working-class economic issues often ignored by both of America's political parties. Sirota serves as co-chair of the Progressive States Network, a 501(c)3 organization that supports state legislators and that is a partner of CREDO.
You can subscribe to Sirota's e-mail newsletter by going to davidsirota.com and signing up in the lefthand corner. To find out more about Sirota, download his official biography or see his recent media appearances. You can e-mail him at sirota@credoaction.com.
The views expressed on this blog are his own, and do not necessarily represent the views of Working Assets (publisher of CREDO Action) or the institutions Sirota works for.
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Discussion
Most/all here believe enforcement against predator employers should be the focus. Stiff fines render this approach self-financing.
However, far fewer of us believe that wage/conditions legislation and/or unionization, can even dent the main problem: unlimited supply of un/semi-skilled indentured laborers. Expansive and porous work visas are a big part of the problem.
Call it "divisive rhetoric" if you must, but millions of native citizen workers have indeed been displaced by their cheaper illegal counterparts. Even our "progressive" or "populist" leadership STILL refuses to acknowledge this.
Cheaper landscapers, housekeepers, construction workers, etc. diminishes wages for retail, manufacturing, and ultimately supervisory, skilled and middle management workers.
Border fencing and mass deportation are impractical, inhumane, expensive and miserably ineffective.
But shutting off the magnet of our relatively higher wages (through employer enforcement), coupled with trashing NAFTA, could launch the attritional return of illegals to their country of origin.
BTW, as much as we whine about globalization, small farmers around the world are affected still more by trade deals drafted by US agribiz conglomerates.
Hi Mr. Sirota,
Ralph Nader has a rather nice review of your book. Check it out:
http://www.votenader.org/blog/2008/06/03/the-uprising/
Supply and demand states that the scarcity of an item dictates the price of that item. Wages work the same way. Scarcity of workers dictate their wages.
Legalizing the immigrant work force is the clearest road forward to LOWERING wages for all workers. Why? Because when you dramatically increase the workforce, then the scarcity of workers plummet. Supply and demand dictates a lower price.
That is why George Bush and big business want to legalize the illegal immigrant work force - that would mean they would have to pay less for their workers.
Chris V,
Are you ready to cancel NAFTA then? If so, join the club.
This is just elite liberal speak. I am tired of all these elite liberals, Sirota now included, who do not give a d*** about working people. I see he is attacking Lou Dobbs now.
I notice that no one hardly posts here any more, it is kind of sad to see someone who you thought was a breath of fresh air, and a voice of populism, in the end just be another politico working the crowd and selling their book.
Also, noticed on the Nader board that one of the former contributors here, was banned for supporting Nader.
It is just sad.
Regards,
Hi FLGibsonJr,
I always suspected that Sirota was more against Dobbs than he was for him. As for the poster that was banned, I miss him and waltc a lot. They used to be able to bring up various issues to discuss. Nowadays, it's all like the rest of the "liberal" blogosphere. The lib blogo thinks that they can watch Mccain self-destruct but they are sadly mistaken. I don't know about MI but out here throughout the entire state of TX, the social cons are teaming up with the corporate interests again to bolster "evangelical" turnout to levels beyond 2004 and I'm already getting plenty of very disturbing sneak attack political bombs the GOP will drop on Obama which they are already getting ready to title "THE FALL OF OBAMA". Despite Mccain's weaknesses, every type of social conservative including those who are called "gun nuts" are successfully being brainwashed into supporting Mccain despite his past support of "gun control". They're even getting people evicted from their homes due to foreclosure and several families who lost their loved ones in Iraq to blindly support Mccain by pumping up fear and hatred against Iran. Sadly, the Democrats are not getting these and other left out voters thinking or even reminded of their economic and even mental plight due to disasterous economic and foreign policies that started this whole tragedy. They go out of their ways to exclude people who aren't "moderate" or "centrist" enough. At this rate, John Mccain could very well beat Bush's highest percentage in TX above 61% come November. Hell, I won't be surprised if he hits above 65% like Nixon did in 1972 ! TX may not be a bellweather state but if a candidate can hit above 61% just like Nixon in 1972 and Reagan in 1984, this is going to be very very bad news come November.
http://uselectionatlas.org/RESULTS/comparegraphs.php?year=2004&fips=48&f=1&off=0&elect=0
And to make matters worse, the media and most conservative institutions are already strengthening their blind support of Mccain. As a matter of fact, their blind support not only exceeds that of Bush II but even that of Reagan in the 1980s. And I kid you not.
By the way Chris V, don't get me wrong. You are correct that importing illegals only depresses wages and increases slave labor. Sadly, like Mccain, Sirota has flip-flopped. I was just suggesting that repealing NAFTA along with proper enforcement on existing laws at the borders is all that we need.
If you all will notice, it wasn't Sirota that wrote this column, but his temporary fill-in named "Austin Guest".
The last time anything like this article appeared on Sirota's blog was also the last time Sirota had a fill-in author. That tends to make me believe that Sirota doesn't completely agree with this article since he hasn't written anything similar during the time period between guest authors.
Sorry (kinda) to change the subject.
Caught your extended (45 mins) C-Span appearance this AM.
Am sure you sold many many "...Uprisings" today. Had never seen a C-Span moderator (Susan Swain today) so actively engaged with a guest/subject before. Callers/questions were unusually intelligent, too.
FLGibsonJr, your absolutely right, and as for the poster who mentioned that it was austin guest who was posting this crap, he is right it is, but I have heard Sirota on Jay Marvin's radio show saying the same things about dobbs and about illegal immigrants. I am both disgusted and amazed at little the democrats actually care about working people and if you like to read something from a real progressive populist about illegal immigration read micheal tomasky's book left for dead.
Thanks Chris V for clarifying that this was a guest post. I tried to announce earlier that I'd be filling in for David. I should be clear that I don't claim to represent his views, or necessarily even those of the organization he co-chairs and I work for, the Progressive States Network.
What I can vouch for is that the post above in no way should be construed as somehow selling out the working class. And I would contest the idea that protecting undocumented immigrant is at odds with protecting the interests of native workers.
Look at Iowa. You've actually got a huge scarcity of labor there. But you don't see the kind of soaring wages that Chris V's college textbook supply-demand argument would predict. Rather, wages are stagnating because businesses like Agriprocessors are taking advantage of the presence of undocumented immigrants to evade wage laws and pay workers less than they are legally entitled to. This distorts the market price of labor and brings everyone's wages down (native and immigrant alike).
So you have two options. Either (1) arrest and deport millions of workers, in the process wasting millions in tax dollars and destroying local economies, while still probably failing to eliminate the undocumented population. Or (2) enforce wage laws that are already on the books and legitimize the immigrant work force so that employers no longer have an excuse to continue exploiting their workers and distorting the price of labor.
Now. FLGibson, I don't know I don't see how making the above argument is in any way counter to the interests of America's workers. I'm not sure what your interpretation of Davids' populism is, but it seems fairly obvious to me that insisting on higher wages for everyone is about as populist as it gets.
As for Dobbs, I, like David, agree with many of his points about how both parties and corporate interests are selling out our country's working families. However, I don't agree that a racist campaign to scapegoat the workers from other countries who are also getting the short end of the stick of trade deals helps us advance the interest of our own workers.
Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't think David has ever advocated racist scapegoating as a part of his populism. And I'm pretty darn sure that he's always tried to keep our eyes trained on the damaging effects on workers across the globe that disastrous trade deals like NAFTA have had. One of the most disastrous of those effects is causing immigrant workers to flock to our country because our corporations are pillaging their countries for profits and destroying their traditional sources of employment and sustenance.
Which I guess brings me back to the most important point: unless we start trying to build solidarity among workers in all countries and instist on decent working conditions and wages for everyone, we're going to continue to see the rampant "hostile takeover" of our government and economy (along with the governments and economies of nations across the world) by undemocratic and exploitative corporate interests.
Is that really such an "elite" argument to be making?
Chris V,
Thanks for pointing out that it was Austin Guest who wrote this blog entry.
I wonder if these so-called "progressives" who apparently believe in mass and uncontrolled immigration ever second guess themselves when they see that there policies toward immigration are strongly supported by large corporate and business interests. You would think that would make them at least curious.
Regards,
Austin Guest,
I am in total support of enforcing all wage laws against every employer in the United States. So I agree with that part of your post.
The problem is we have enormously strong business interests in this country who want not only unfettered trade, but unfettered immigration, both of which destroy the wages of average working Americans. I have nothing at all personally against any illegal immigrants, most people do not, but they are a tool or a weapon of corporate interests and it is aimed squarely at working Americans.
Peaceful repatriation of illegals is probably the best policy, with criminal sanctions against those who knowingly employ as well as exploit them.
Now how you equate Dobbs with anything racist, if that is what you intend, I cannot fathom. I have listened to him for a long time and I have never heard him say or infer anything that could be construed as racist. Even his detractors have conceded that. If you have any evidence please provide.
Regards,
FLGibson: just a little fact check here. The policies I am proposing above are in fact supported by most unions in this country, and have been since as early as 2004.
The policies that find the most support from corporations and their delegates to the Bush Administration are the ones that would create guest worker programs that further extend the two-tiered labor system the abolition of which I advocate in my post.
Examples of Lou Dobbs' racism would include erroneously leading the public to believe that Mexicans are planning a "reconquista" of the Southwestern United States, that Mexican immigrants are carrying leprosy into our country, and that illegal immigrants are responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime in the communities in which they settle. All of these assertions, which he repeats on broadcast after broadcast, are demonstrably false, as has been amply demonsrated by Media Matters, among other organizations.
But, sadly, these false assertions serve quite effectively to build the impression that Latino immigrants are dirty, dangerous people intent on destroying our country. When in fact, they are for the most part, hard working people of faith looking to integrate into a country which they have come to because they believe in the promise of prosperity that it still holds out to them despite the efforts of corporations to horde that prosperity for themselves.
Like I said, I agree with Dobbs on many issues. His characterization of immigrants as essentially the next Red Menace is not one of those issues.
Actually a couple of weeks ago Lou Dobbs had a guest from Media Matters to debate these allegations and Dobbs pretty much chewed him up and spit him out. The guy was poorly prepared and in fact had his own agenda, Dobbs asked him what the titles of the guests last two books were(it was actually kind of funny).
Regards,
Dobbs is married to a Latino, I can't see how you can make those accusations ("dirty" and "dangerous").
This blog had better make the author's names more clear for each post because it's just plain misleading for Sirota to outsource to others just to prop up the site's blogging activity. Small prints won't do. Make the font size on the author the same size as the body text.
Oh well, I guess like Howard Dean, he'd much rather trot over to Faux Noise, the GOP puppet station, and allow himself to get trashed. Very sad.
FLGibson,
Criticizing Lou Dobbs is a far cry from attacking working people. Lou Dobbs lives on a massive estate in New Jersey. He majored in economics at Harvard (knows all about supply and demand). The suits he wears on his show probably cost more than my house.
Please don't equate Lou Dobbs with working people.
He also has a silver tongue and is extremely smart, so he can get away with hosting white supremacists on the show as experts on immigration, use graphics from hate groups, etc. Recently he referred to critics of his views as "these cotton...these ridiculous politicians": http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nofy3262nEA
cotton-picking??? slip of the silver tongue, i guess.
kevin,
I never equated Dobb's or any other single person to working people.
I know quite a bit about his background, and have never found him to be a racist whatsoever, that was the charge I was mainly questioning.
I think he happens to be spot-on with a lot of issues no matter the size of his estate, but he has also been dead wrong on issues in the past like NAFTA, which he freely admits being wrong on originally. Overall, it is good having him on the airwaves questioning the corporate power in this country.
Regards,
Well one thing Austin Guest has accomplished is bringing a dead blog to life. ;-)
Regards,
Austin is promoting a false dichotomy. There are more than his two solutions of either mass deportation or enforcement plus legalization.
For example, how about enforcing labor laws that are already on the books without legalizing the illegal immigrants already here? With that solution we would not have to deport anyone. But, since illegal immigrants would be unable to illegally obtain and hold work, they would return to their home countries by themselves. That would do more than turn off the job magnet, it would effectively reverse it.
Further, I don't understand why you bring up Iowa when the example you use support my previous statements more than yours. So, wages are not increasing because employers are passing over legal workers in favor of cheaper illegal workers. As I stated previously: when you dramatically increase the workforce, then the scarcity of workers plummet. Supply and demand dictates a lower price. The legality of workers doesn't change the supply and demand issues when the labor laws aren't enforced.
You want to increase wages? Enforcing our labor laws barring illegal workers from obtaining jobs would make workers more scarce, which would raise wages. Legalizing the workers would only make the supply and demand issues worse, lowering wages for everyone.
As for Lou Dobbs, his biggest attackers seem to be those who have never seen his show. At least take the time to watch him for a week before writing ignorant talking points.
Chris V,
Very good points!
Regards,
FLGibsonJr,
Another banned user also spoke up on that site I posted. In addition, there are others who are questioning the book and author's credibility altogether. The lesson that has yet to be learned is that if you want people to take what you believe in seriously, you have to start out by putting principle over party first and foremost. Notice that the conservatives for 20 years never really cared which party was in power because they knew that they could get most of 1 party and enough of the other party in their camp issue after issue. The progressives and liberals have yet to learn from this. It is debatable as to whether progressives and liberals should start out by trying to re-infiltrate both major parties or allow a new 3rd party from ground zero up. Either way, it's going to take at least a decade and we all know that big business and the social cons will do everything they can to either infiltrate the third party the way they did the ACLU or shield the two parties any way they can. It is possible to use the Libertarians to infiltrate the conservative movement and eventually reform them to a reasonable level and along side the progressive/liberal movement fills in the void. Again, no easy task but we gotta start somewhere.
Chris V,
My question is just what jobs are the "illegals" depressing wages for? And also what Americans are available to fill in these vacancies? On another blog, a user noted that with the elimination of undocumented workers, the people who traditionally worked those jobs would begin to take them back. So does this mean that African-American women will once again strive to be domestics?
According to the Labor Department, meat-packing jobs that used to pay $19 an hour in 1980 today pay closer to $9 an hour. Those numbers are even worse when you factor in inflation.
Construction, food service, landscaping, manufacturing, and more have all seen depressed wages as a result of the additional workers brought in through illegal immigration.
In all cases, these are jobs that Americans either used to do or still do, but share with illegal immigrants. In some cases, teenagers and young adults have been pushed completely out of the workforce and would like a job, but can't find one.
I don't know about black women, but I do know several white women who are interested in getting paid for domestic work. However, they charge more than illegal immigrants for the same job.
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