The notion is that there are jobs Americans will not do. This idea started with harvesting crops, which are difficult jobs. The problem is, of course, that the meme of "jobs Americans will not do" has simply been applied to any job that some immigrant is brought into this country to do.
A current example, taken from the
Taken from the News-Press (original article http://tinyurl.com/...)
1:10 A.M. -- At a time when Lee Countys unemployment rate is almost 14 percent and about 38,000 residents are jobless, Publix is paying people from South America to work at some of its Southwest Florida
supermarkets.
For the last three years, Publix has hired hundreds of Peruvians and Brazilians for its stores in south Fort Myers and Naples during tourist season because the company says it cant find locals to fill those spots.
The South American cashiers, baggers, deli, bakery and grocery clerks work part time at more than 20 area locations, said Publix spokeswoman Shannon Patten. The company began hiring them in late 2008, when Lees unemployment was about 6 percent.
From another portion of this piece:
Although numbers arent broken down by county, there are 7,756 J1 visa-holders in Florida, said U.S. State Department spokeswoman Darlene Kirk. The department calls it an Exchange Visitor Program, allowing foreign college students to become directly involved in the daily life of the people of the United States through travel and temporary work. Publix doesnt reciprocate in the exchange.
How many are unemployed in this county? Glad you asked.
Barbara Hartman, spokeswoman for the Career and Service Center in Fort
Myers says shes surprised Publix would turn to foreign workers.
Usually, she says, companies hire non-citizens for positions that are
either specialized or in remote places neither of which the Publix jobs
are.
Im just at a loss as to why they would not be able to find enough
candidates to fill those positions, Hartman said.
So, shes got an idea for Publix: Check out her agency. With more than
38,000 people looking for work in Lee County, wed love to help them
with their recruitment effort.
38,000 unemployed in this county alone, and they are bringing in thousands to staff jobs that "Americans don't want to do." Except, Americans DO want to do these jobs.
So, they use this "cultural exchange", but they don't do any exchanging. It's just cheap labor. That's the whole point of this visa, now. It's an abuse of the visa, of course, but HEY!! too fucking bad.
It is our experience that potential workers that live year round near our stores are interested in permanent jobs, not temporary ones, Patten said.
Many Southwest Florida jobseekers and the people who help them disagree.
Are you kidding? asked Rita Hursell. The 46-year-old nurses aide, whos been out of work since 2007, is on food stamps and lives with her parents in Lehigh Acres.
Hursell, who just completed a computer class at the Career and Service Center in Fort Myers, said shed be happy to work at Publix even on a part-time, temporary basis. I wouldnt mind at all, she said.
Pat Angelicchio, who owns Snelling Personnel Services in Fort Myers, says Hursell is typical of the people he sees at his business, which matches job-seekers to jobs.
This is happening all over. High school and college kids used to be hired. But scheduling is hard, hard, hard. It's easier to bring in compliant "temporary" workers. Why are they temporary? Probably because the company moves them around. No one takes a job for more than a month, but they stay employed.
This is the cheap labor market, folks. This is the situation where cheap labor is promoted by corporations and open-border types.
Just exactly where are Americans supposed to work if they are even barred from working at supermarkets?
This is simply not right.
The News Press editorial, January 20, 2010: (http://tinyurl.com/...)
The News-Press
Editorial: Employers must hire U.S. workers first
January 20, 2010
It's simply not acceptable for Southwest Florida employers to import
foreign workers when the local unemployment rate is almost 14 percent.
That's especially so when they are using a cultural exchange program to
get those workers visas without having to show that Americans won't
take the jobs.
Publix and some other employers claim they can't find Americans to do
the low-paid, temporary jobs at issue.
Since 2008, when unemployment was already 6 percent, Publix has hired
hundreds of Peruvians and Brazilians for its stores in south Fort Myers
and Naples in the tourist season, when it says it's hard to find locals
for the temporary jobs.
What we are hearing from some of the county's 38,000 jobless and the
employment specialists who try to help them is that this is insulting
nonsense. We agree.
Resorts all over the country are being staffed by foreign workers, not US college students and high school students. Where are our children supposed to work?
Another important point: This company wants to hire temporary workers to do all of the staffing. Why is that? Well, obviously the lure of cheap labor is overwhelming them. They don't want to pay health insurance, so they use cheap labor from foreign sources. They don't want to do anything that made America America.
For the defenders of cheap labor, is this a defensible situation? Not to me.
If you live in that area, I would certainly NEVER shop at this Publix place.