Feds scrap "Virtual Border"

[bane]

Americans with strong work ethics don't end up digging ditches for a living very often. They end up doing something a little higher on the food chain. Immigrants from more humble means think a little differently. It isn't a racial thing. It's a cultural thing.

College grads don't really want to "dig ditches" for a living. Totally believable. (Probably more so if the grad is an Ivy Leaguer.)

Yes, some cultures are just more, uh, "laid back"/"slower paced"? I can agree with that.

I only take issue with you painting every American worker as "lazy" solely because of your bad experiences. Should every government employee be replaced with an illegal worker?

I'm not painting every American worker as lazy. I said that individuals very. Also, I didn't say anything about illegal workers, I said immigrants.There are plenty of perfectly legal immigrants.

[bane]

$480 times TWO diggers is $960 x 1.6 = $1536. You forgot 2 diggers and the 60% markup.

Yeah, I forgot Bane's 60% markup.

But originally it was TWO diggers at $320 ($10 per hour) for 16 hours ($160 for each worker).

...Say it takes 2 guys 16 hours to do it at a rate of 10 bucks an hour each. That's 320 bucks. The employer adds in his over head and profit, let's say 60%, and charges his customer 500 bucks...

$500

Now, if at a $15 per hour pay rate instead of $10 per hour (for TWO diggers) that $500 should be around $768 (extra pay plus the markup), if I'm not mistaken. Yes, it's an extra expense for using American workers, but hardly a business killer.

...Change that to 2 guys making 15 an hour who spend a lot of time leaning on their shovels and it takes 4 days. That same job ends up costing the customer 1500 bucks...

NOT $1500!

I hate numbers!

Hey, Bane, what's the deal with overtime pay for your "non-citizen" employees? Just wondering.

Lerx is right dude. It's simple arithmetic mang! 4 days = 32h x 30 (2 guys at 15 per) x 1.6 = 1536.00 I think you must be disregarding the extra time it will take or something.

I don't pay anyone with "questionable" citizenship hourly. They're sub contractors. They get payed by the job, not the hour. Keeps me out of trouble with the man.

[lerxstcat]

Also, as said, college grads don't apply for ditch digging jobs, it's usually high school dropouts. Who often dropped out because they have a problem taking orders. Which is why on Day 1 of a job they think they know how to do it better than someone who's been doing it for 20 years and want to argue about it with you, on the clock.

Mexicans don't do that, they get to working because they are only hired for the day and they want you to remember them next time you are cruising 11th Street looking for day laborers.

If you've bid a job for a set amount, that's what you need. And you don't need your customers watching a couple of workers standing around smoking and jawjacking half the day. Now you're not only losing your ass, but you'll have trouble collecting because the customer now thinks you jacked her up on the price. What a fucking nightmare!

Would YOU want to deal with that extra bulshit, just to hire Americans who are ungrateful for their jobs and resent having to dig ditches? It's not worth it.

[bane]

I get the feeling that E M thinks I'm slamming all blue collar people. I think I need to point out that I'm talking about unskilled labor here. I'm not talking about tradesmen. It takes a degree of ambition and work ethic to learn a trade, particularly to excell at it. It doesn't take much ambition to dig a ditch.

[MasterOfMeatPuppets]

I get the feeling that E M thinks I'm slamming all blue collar people. I think I need to point out that I'm talking about unskilled labor here. I'm not talking about tradesmen. It takes a degree of ambition and work ethic to learn a trade, particularly to excell at it. It doesn't take much ambition to dig a ditch.

Those Mexicans have ambition and a strong work ethic, yet they're digging ditches.

Your distinction is irrelevant. It is arrogant for you to assume those who work toward a different goal than yours are inferior.

[bane]

I get the feeling that E M thinks I'm slamming all blue collar people. I think I need to point out that I'm talking about unskilled labor here. I'm not talking about tradesmen. It takes a degree of ambition and work ethic to learn a trade, particularly to excell at it. It doesn't take much ambition to dig a ditch.

Those Mexicans have ambition and a strong work ethic, yet they're digging ditches.

Your distinction is irrelevant. It is arrogant for you to assume those who work toward a different goal than yours are inferior.

Now I'm calling Mexicans inferior? Comprehension isn't your strong suit is it? My distinction is absolutely relevant in the context of the conversation at hand. I'm not implying anything negative about immigrant laborers. I have stated repeatedly that most of those guys come from more humble means than most Americans and that they seem to have a stronger work ethic and a stronger willingness to get the job done than most Americans (who are afforded far greater opportunities) who are willing to do something like ditch digging in the first place. My point is pretty simple. What part of this is so confusing?

[lerxstcat]

I get the feeling that E M thinks I'm slamming all blue collar people. I think I need to point out that I'm talking about unskilled labor here. I'm not talking about tradesmen. It takes a degree of ambition and work ethic to learn a trade, particularly to excell at it. It doesn't take much ambition to dig a ditch.

Those Mexicans have ambition and a strong work ethic, yet they're digging ditches.

Your distinction is irrelevant. It is arrogant for you to assume those who work toward a different goal than yours are inferior.

Now I'm calling Mexicans inferior? Comprehension isn't your strong suit is it? My distinction is absolutely relevant in the context of the conversation at hand. I'm not implying anything negative about immigrant laborers. I have stated repeatedly that most of those guys come from more humble means than most Americans and that they seem to have a stronger work ethic and a stronger willingness to get the job done than most Americans (who are afforded far greater opportunities) who are willing to do something like ditch digging in the first place. My point is pretty simple. What part of this is so confusing?

He's not saying they are inferior or have less ambition. The point is that they will dig ditches if they have to, and here they have to because they are here illegally. It's circumstance, not inferiority, that makes these jobs relatively attractive to them.

We hired a Mexican man as a helper in our shop for $10 an hour who had had a job with the Mexican federal government as an accountant. He had a college degree as a CPA there, which netted him #$5 per day working for the Mexican government. For $10 an hour he'd dig ditches, jump into a trench full of sewage to repair a line, he never balked at anything.

We were thrilled to have him and he was rapidly attaining the skills of a journeyman plumber. We wanted to make him a crew supervisor ecause he was fluently bilingual, very intelligent, and absolutely trustworthy.

But then his father died back in Mexico and for the family, he had to go home and be moral support to his mother. He had 2 brothers who had other jobs and they stayed here, sending most of their money home. They shared a 3-bedroom apartment with about 12 other people sho were all doing the same.

Now most Mexicans I knew didn't quite have the brains and drive of the Jaimes brothers, but most of them DID have a willingness to bust their asses that you just do not see in natural-born American citizens.

Sure they are always gonna move on and up, but there are always plenty of new arrivals on the street corner who are willing to work for a wage that allows a contractor to make a profit, where the Americans want more and do MUCH less work. If anything the AMERICANS are inferior as hard workers, sad to say.

[MasterOfMeatPuppets]

I get the feeling that E M thinks I'm slamming all blue collar people. I think I need to point out that I'm talking about unskilled labor here. I'm not talking about tradesmen. It takes a degree of ambition and work ethic to learn a trade, particularly to excell at it. It doesn't take much ambition to dig a ditch.

Those Mexicans have ambition and a strong work ethic, yet they're digging ditches.

Your distinction is irrelevant. It is arrogant for you to assume those who work toward a different goal than yours are inferior.

Now I'm calling Mexicans inferior? Comprehension isn't your strong suit is it? My distinction is absolutely relevant in the context of the conversation at hand.

It would appear comprehension isn't yours, nor irony. It was not my intent to imply racism. Technically you are calling them inferior, not because they are Mexicans, but because of your blanket condemnation of unskilled labor.

The whole 'lazy American' argument is bullshit.
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/eco_o ... tivity-ppp
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lab_h ... urs-worked
http://www.nationmaster.com/graph/lab_w ... n-40-hours
We work more, vacation less and get more done in those hours than most other countries on the planet.

Back on subject:
We need a guest worker program so guys like the CPA can come here and work while criminals and psychos are filtered out. We also need sanctions, up to and including jail time, for employers who insist on hiring illegal immigrants. It's not right that illegal immigrants get blamed for chasing the opportunity to get ahead while the scumbags who exploit them get a pass. We shouldn't forget the northern border, either. Canada is popular with Al Qaeda due to it's loose immigration/asylum laws and I'm sure it was Al Qaeda, not Mexicans, who flew planes into the Pentagon and WTC. What we don't need is an expensive iron curtain that will be cut through, tunneled under and climbed over.

[bane]

It is patently obvious that you don't have much experience dealing with unskilled labor. I'm not condemning the American work ethic as a whole. I am stating that most Americans who have a strong work ethic don't end up as unskilled labor. That should be simple enough to follow. I'm sorry if it offends your sensibilities. It's a true statement.

What we need is a guest worker program that won't wreck the economy. It's very simple to implement. Give the guys that are currently here and contributing the right to work then go after employers, hard. Problem solved.

[MasterOfMeatPuppets]

It is patently obvious that you don't have much experience dealing with unskilled labor. I'm not condemning the American work ethic as a whole. I am stating that most Americans who have a strong work ethic don't end up as unskilled labor. That should be simple enough to follow. I'm sorry if it offends your sensibilities. It's a true statement.

It must be cheap illegal labor skewing things down south. I don't see it up here in the north but there aren't a whole lot of Mexicans up here and more often than not, they're legal immigrants.

What we need is a guest worker program that won't wreck the economy. It's very simple to implement. Give the guys that are currently here and contributing the right to work then go after employers, hard. Problem solved.

Unfortunately, for some it is easier to just build a wall than fix the problem right.

[lerxstcat]

Wages have historically been lower in the South than in the North, even before illegal immigrant labor became a factor. That's why foreign car manufacturers are building factories in the South as American builders are closing factories in the North.

Southern states are right-to-work (meaning non-union) states because Southern states basically had to promise this to manufacturers to get them to come to the south to build their factories. They work for half what UAW workers get - because the jobs would not exist at all if they didn't. So wage scales here are already lower, because the Southern states were basically in a state of chronic economic deporession since the end of the Civil War.

Even so, there are some unskilled labor jobs that Anglo citizens will not take for the money that Hispanics will do them for, aqnd if they take them at a higher wage, they don't do as well because they waste time arguing about the instructions they are given. Unlike Mexicans, they are wise enough to know that you still have to pay them for time they stand there arguing with you, until you fire them anyway.

After awhile, why would you really want to use the white guy who's just gonna piss and moan, not follow instructions, and make your life miserable? Mexicans do it better and cheaper, even if they can't speak English.

[bane]

It is patently obvious that you don't have much experience dealing with unskilled labor. I'm not condemning the American work ethic as a whole. I am stating that most Americans who have a strong work ethic don't end up as unskilled labor. That should be simple enough to follow. I'm sorry if it offends your sensibilities. It's a true statement.

It must be cheap illegal labor skewing things down south. I don't see it up here in the north but there aren't a whole lot of Mexicans up here and more often than not, they're legal immigrants.

I haven't had much experience up North. I did one job in Minneapolis back in about 93. Me and my crew were up there about 6 months working on a large project. My base pay was about 70% higher there than it was at home due to the prevailing wage union thing. I don't think it has as much to do with illegal labor as it does with unions. Then again, the only reason we were there in the first place is because the local union wouldn't build that job in the winter, so, there you go.

What we need is a guest worker program that won't wreck the economy. It's very simple to implement. Give the guys that are currently here and contributing the right to work then go after employers, hard. Problem solved.

Unfortunately, for some it is easier to just build a wall than fix the problem right.

If people think a wall is going to stop illegals, they're mistaken. It'll stop some of it, but not anywhere close to all. I think some sort of fence is prudent anyway though. It will make the real bad guys a little more leery about bringing things in that route because they won't have as many options. Illegals get caught and they get sent home. Terrorists and drug dealers get caught, they go to prison.