Alabama Immigrant Law Irks Business

Then hire American workers! The unemployment rate for construction workers is 13.6% how can they say there is a workers shortage in construction? Oh I get it there is a shortage in cheap coolie wage labor, not in able willing bodies. Alabama's Immigration Law is doing just what it was designed to do, chase the illegals out and open the door for out of work American's. If the Agribusinesses don't like it too bad, either pay a living wage or develop an automatic picking machine. As far as construction goes, there was never a shortage of American citizen construction workers, only a huge influx of illegals willing to do the job for less.

 

Years of wage decimation will make it hard to return to a living wage. The cost of construction in Alabama will go up. It becomes a question of whether or not Alabama construction companies will be able to compete with out of state interests that won't have to follow the law.

 

Then hire American workers!
Dagnabbit, that was easy. Unless they too are worried to be sued by the feds, just so the the unemployed stay on the Gov dole.

 

American's aspire to more than living in dirt or piled together in a small apt., they need more $ to live and farmers can't pay it. We've eaten well off the backs of illegals for 100 years.

BTW, if supposedly there's no jobs being created by Obama, how can there be a shortage of labor?

 

Had the roof done.
After a few proposals, local guy, employing American workers ( yes, I checked), came in lowest. They wanted to work, wanted the job. Did a quality job as well, and I did recommend them to others. They are still working without interruptions.

 

It's really that simple. If businesses have grown accustomed to an artificial profit bubble on the backs of a criminal workforce...it's time for them to come back to reality.

 

Jesus. I agree with a Prof Peabody OP.

 

Fair enough. I stand corrected. Which is a good thing in this scenario.

 

If out of State companies decide not to follow the law it will be very expensive for them.....It will soon be against the law to rent to illegals.


And produce rots in the field every year...they always plant more than they can sell.

And yes...it may be expensive in the short term.

back in 83 I tried to get a job picking peaches in Chilton County Alabama... because I needed money...I did not get hired because all the jobs were taken by local people.

I got a pretty good construction job instead.

 

Yes, but wait for the complaints about food prices going up (higher labor costs). Of course, they can always blame that on Obama

 

Another conservative policy destroys another economy. Color me shocked.

 

I hear you. I'm sure Peabody's creepy fixation with leak through.

However, that said, immigration policy has been terribly politicized by both sides. The GOP has been the worse: they really don't want to stem illegal immigration since its the source of exploitable workers for so many big industries. They just want to appear to do something by building walls and blaming hard working immigrants. It's all more GOP scapegoating and xenophobia feeding Tea Party insecurities.

On the Democratic side, they really should look at this as an economic issue: illegal immigration is exploited by corporations to suppress the wages of American workers and victimize illegal workers since they have no real rights. So we should criminalize the hiring of illegals and throw CEOs in jail who have a pattern of doing so. To do that you need a good system of vefification, such as e-verify in place which should be required by any company over 50 workers let's say.

The minute CEOs start going to jail for hiring illegals, the practice will stop and workers wages will go up, as companies scramble to hire Americans and not violate worker protection laws (which of course they do with illegals).

That said we shouldn't demonize illegals - they are hard working people who are the victims here. All they want is a better life, so I don't blame them. We shouldn't deport them (Obama is right about this) -- indeed, once the jobs dry up, most will go home, since they all come here to work. It's almost impossible for illegals to get any public services (except education for kids, and that's a good thing).

In addition we should pressure Mexico and other emigrant states to foster unionization so that workers there don't feel the need to come to America to find work. Heck, I'd be willing to arm the illegals as they go back to their homeland, and hand them a copy of the Federalist Papers.

In any case, it's a complex issue that involves a lot of interest groups, ethnic politics, and a lot of deeper values, including our immigrant past. I'm sympathetic to the pro-immigrant groups. But it seems to me the Democrats need to focus solely on the economics of it, as the only way to counteract conservative scapegoating and phoney solutions.

 

The majority of the government of Alabama is republican.

The dems were the ones that put up the fight.

The people of Alabama spoke and were heard.

Arming the Mexicans makes no sense whatsoever.

 

All true, but now they are finding that they cannot control the beast that they have created (Tea Party), and that is wreaking havoc in their wink-and-nod cheap (illegal) labor for big business policy.

The hard right will always scapegoat, and the right in general will always offer phoney solutions. It's just what they do [shrug], so to the extreme wing of the GOP the Democrats are screwed regardless, so what they should do is learn to play hardball and give it right back to the right wing extremists. LBJ most certainly wouldn't have taken the mountain of stupid and disrespectful (*)(*)(*)(*) that Obama has had to put up with, you can bet on that.

 

Oh man, can you imagine how LBJ would have dealt with dunces like Boehner and Palin. He would have personally beaten them with his surgically removed appendix until they cowered in the corner like the whipped dogs they are.

 

Make business pay the social costs of these parasites. As it is business makes a fortune off the cheap labor of illegals while the taxpayers are stuck paying for the schooling, welfare and health care of these criminals.

 

Its hysterical to hear businesses complain that the law is being enforced. Why cant they cheat?!

 

Why don't you learn how to think.? A man can pick say 200 oranges an hour and if he's paid $10 that's a measly 5 cents an orange while oranges cost around 75 cents. Pickers are just a tiny part of the cost of produce.

Hyperinflation is coming but it's because your god obama is printing trillions of $ and giving it to the bankers.

 

Americans work at a farm?

These agro-businesses are nothing but poor farmer owners who can't even earn a living themselves without these welfare programs for farmers: illegal employment, Agricultural subsidies, bend the minimum wage laws, lax safety standards. There's a reason farming is a dead industry in the developed USA.

 

There isn't any, the cheap bums that hire illegals to work for peanuts then pocket the big profits themselves are saying that.

 

Food prices are going up due to the cost of transportation, ie: Diesel Fuel. Obama is a eunuch to do anything about it.

 

The cost is wrecking our country.

 

Yeah. How dare the Republican governor try and enforce the law!

 

LBJ was a violent bully? You must think so highly of him.
Yeah, lets beat up all of those with whom we disagree. That'll solve all our problems.

 

`Bama immigration law put on hold...

Federal Judge Blocks Alabama Immigration Law
August 30, 2011 - A U.S. federal judge has temporarily blocked a controversial immigration law that was set to go into effect Thursday in the southern U.S. state of Alabama.