:: rawblogXport ::

:: Wednesday, January 14, 2004 ::

Bush’s Immigration Plan Would Provide Quasi-Slave Labor to Low-Wage Bosses By Harry Kelber
LaborTalk for January 14, 2004
Since 1996, Congress has refused to raise the federal minimum wage, forcing millions of workers to accept a poverty-level rate of $5.15 an hour to hold onto a job.

The beneficiaries of Congress inaction are the hotel, restaurant, hospital, nursing home, fast food, supermarket, dry cleaning and other low-wage industries that thrive on the exploitation of an enormous pool of unskilled workers, hungry enough to take dead end jobs.

This cheap, compliant work force has been augmented by from eight to ten million “undocumented” workers, who quietly suffer abuse and humiliation from their employer, lest they be fired from their jobs and deported back to their homeland.

The employers in these low-wage industries are now complaining that American workers are shunning the jobs they offer and that their needs can only be met by the importation of foreign workers who would love whatever pay and working conditions are offered them.

posted 7:49 PM :: reference link :: 0 comments ::

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