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Jobs that Americans Won’t Do?
COLLAPSE
I posted this to another discussion stream, but would like others to consider it as well.
I’d like to question the idea that undocumented immigrants do jobs that US citizens don’t want.
Is it that they do jobs that no citizens or authorized workers want? Or that they will do jobs that no citizens/authorized workers want at the wages that immigrants
with fewer choices will accept? Or is it that citizens/authorized workers don’t have to take those jobs because they already have jobs that are better paid?
Is the issue of the supply of labor unimportant? Are we to believe employers when they say the only available workers are undocumented workers? And what are the
implications for immigration policy if that is true?
The meat processing industry is a large employers of immigrants, and many of those immigrants lack authorization to work in the US. It is the sort of job that is held
out as an example of a job that “Americans” (native-born or legally authorized) workers will not do.
It is worth noting that those jobs were mostly held by authorized workers for most of the 20th century. During the 1930s, as a result of organizing by CIO unions, they
became mostly unionized. They paid fairly high wages and provided good benefits (the unions that represented packinghouse workers tended to be racially integrated and
provided black workers with some of the best paychecks available, too).
Starting in the 1970s, the industry changed production techniques and underwent consolidation and sought to get rid of the influence of unions. The industry is largely
non-union, now. Wages plummeted to the point that native-born workers often left for other jobs. Wages declined before immigrants began working in the industry. In
fact, the industry spent considerable resources recruiting immigrant workers rather than pay wages that were competitive with other positions.
The construction industry offers a similar tale. 50 years ago if you had a house built in an urban area, there was a good chance it was built by union labor. In much
of the country commercial construction was done only by union labor.
Now the opposite is true.
It is a rare residential building that employs union labor and most commercial construction is non-union. Working in construction is no longer synonymous with earning
high wages.
Now almost one in six construction workers is an unauthorized immigrant. BUT the decline in construction wages, especially in residential construction predated the
influx of immigrant labor. It followed the decline in union representation. Construction trade unions bear some of the blame for the decline; they stopped aggressively
organizing and treated their unions like closed social clubs rather than organizations of worker solidarity, but employers took advantage of the situation.
When employers had trouble filling slots at reduced wages they searched for cheaper workers, including undocumented workers.
I think it is important to keep a historical perspective before we jump to the conclusion that native-born workers won’t do the jobs that undocumented workers will. It
is important to understand who has power, and how that power is exercised.
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