VDARE.COM - http://www.vdare.com/guzzardi/050902_vfl.htm
September 02, 2005
View From Lodi, CA: Labor Day — As the Rich Get Richer ...
By Joe Guzzardi
Labor Day is an appropriate time to continue last week’s analysis of
the impact of non-immigrant visas like the H-1B and L1 on the U.S.
worker and his wages.
Readers will recall that in my column "Look Out Teachers, the H-1B
Visa Gang Wants Your Job" I wrote that the Clark County School
District in Nevada had just recruited 51 Filipino schoolteachers to
work on H-1B visas.
The question I posed was whether the district had considered all its
domestic options before traveling half way around the world to hire
people who have never set foot in a U.S. classroom
I felt certain that, with the slightest effort, school district
administrators could have come up with a host of eager American
candidates with impressive resumes. Laid off tech workers is but one
example of immediately available potential teachers.
Lo and behold it has since come to light that Teresa ****ter, who holds
a master’s degree in English Literature and has taught for 14 years in
California and Japan, applied to teach in Clark County but was
rejected. ["Experienced Teachers Spurned Despite Shortage," Antonio
Planas, Las Vegas Review-Journal, August 25]
Even though ****ter was once "Teacher of the Year" at her Stockton, CA.
high school and is an English as a Second Language specialist, an area
of high need according to Clark County officials, she was turned down.
****ter—get this—was spurned because she did not do her student
teaching in Nevada.
As the Las Vegas Review-Journal, in its editorial "Teacher Shortage a
Bureaucratic Fraud", noted:
"This is like having Bill Gates or Steve Jobs show up offering to
teach a course in entrepreneur****p at the local business college, and
telling them, ‘Sorry, you never did complete all your required
semesters of gym class in high school, did you?’"
The irony is that the Filipino teachers didn’t do their student
teaching in Nevada either. Nevertheless, the Clark County School
District was clever enough to find away around that roadblock for the
Filipinos.
But it was unwilling to do the same for ****ter.
The net result is that 51 teaching jobs are gone. Americans will not
be able to compete for those positions. In fact, they may not even
want to since the Filipino teachers are paid less. And the same job
for future prospective teachers is now locked in at a lower rate of
pay.
Clark County, by the way, pays its beginning teachers about $27,000.
This Las Vegas scenario plays out over and over again across America
in virtually every labor market…teachers, nurses, doctors, software
managers.
Employers scream "shortage" and Congress rushes to increase visa caps.
In 2005, it has already increased the H-1B visa cap by 20,000, at
least doubled the H-2B "tem****ary worker" visas, and added an
additional 10,000 E-3 work based green card visas for Australians.
Don’t look at those as merely raw numbers. They are lost job
op****tunities for Americans.
The pattern sustains itself because an endless flow of workers comes
to the US—some legally and some not legally. But regardless of the
worker’s immigration status, they can be hired for less money.
In 2004, Boston’s Northeastern University Center for Labor Studies
released a re****t by Professor Andrew Sum titled "Foreign Immigration
and the U.S. Labor Market".
The re****t found that between 2000 and January and April 2004, foreign
immigrants arriving since 2000 accounted for at least 60 percent of
all the labor force growth in the nation. The number of new immigrant
workers rose by at least 2.1 million during that period while the
number of native-born workers and established immigrants declined by
1.3 million.
The majority of the new workers are young, poor and uneducated Mexican
migrants, Sum discovered.
Said Sum:
"The share of national labor force growth accounted for by new
immigrants is historically unprecedented."
With cheap labor dominating, U.S. wages have been stagnant for over
two decades.
And not only are wages flat but they have lagged significantly behind
productivity.
Put another way, workers do not share in cor****ate profits.
Finally, the $5.15 federal minimum wage that has not been increased
since 1997 keeps the most at risk element of the work force poor.
Since raises are often tied to the minimum wage, the low starting
point makes it nearly impossible to earn a living income.
At the same time, according to the New York Times, the average 2002
salary for a Chief Executive Officer—the very guys who holler
"shortage"— is $10.8 million. Their pay increases average 6%, more
than twice that of workers’ paychecks.
The little guy keeps getting trampled on.
In 2004, the poverty rate in America rose to 12.7% of the total U.S.
population or 37.0 million, an increase of 1.1 million people,
according to an August 29 Census Bureau press release.
The poverty rate rose for one group—non-Hispanic whites. Other
ethnicities—Hispanic, Asian and black— remained unchanged but still
were within poverty guidelines.
Cheap labor has created lucrative times in executive suites. But it
has made life tough for low-skilled workers of all backgrounds as they
struggle to make ends meet.
Once upon a time, the prevailing philosophy across American when
hiring was, "Find the best people available and pay them fairly."
But now, with so much cheap labor available, the tune has changed to
"Why pay more when we can always pay less?"
Joe Guzzardi [email him], an instructor in English at the Lodi Adult
School, has been writing a weekly column since 1988. It currently
appears in the Lodi News-Sentinel.
---------------------------------------------------------------
The articles on VDARE.com are brought to you by The Center for
American Unity. We are sup****ted by generous donations from our
readers. Contributions are tax deductible and appreciated.
Contribute...
Agree with this post? Please consider PASSING IT ON!.
"So, likewise, a passionate attachment of one nation for another
produces a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation,
facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where
no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the
other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of
the latter . . . It leads also to concessions to the favorite nation of
privileges denied to others . . .
"Against the insidious wiles of foreign influence (I conjure you to
believe me, fellow-citizens) the jealousy of a free people ought to be
constantly awake, since history and experience prove that foreign
influence is one of the most baneful foes of republican government . . .
Excessive partiality for one foreign nation and excessive dislike of
another cause those whom they actuate to see danger only on one side, and
serve to veil and even second the arts of influence on the other. Real
patriots who may resist the intrigues of the favorite are liable to become
suspected and odious, while its tools and dupes usurp the applause and
confidence of the people to surrender their interests . . .
"Nothing is more essential than that permanent, inveterate antipathies
against particular nations and passionate attachments for others should be
excluded, and that in place of them just and amicable feelings toward all
should be cultivated. The nation which indulges toward another an habitual
hatred or an habitual fondness is in some degree a slave. It is a slave to
its animosity or to its affection, either of which is sufficient to lead
it astray from its duty and its interest."
-- President George Wa****ngton
Farewell Address
September 26, 1796
|
