Feds Bat Cleanup

Federal immigration officers are busy arresting members of cleaning crews at Wal-Marts across the country. The giant retailer supposedly has a "pattern" of hiring janitorial contractors who employ illegal aliens.

Pretty soon native-born Americans will be able to claim the oh-dark-thirty floor polishing and sweeping jobs they've clamored for lo these many years.

Comments

[Andy]

Give me $25. an hour plus full medical/dental and I would do it. I'm sure there are many native-born Americans who would bid much lower as well. Anyone for $18 plus medical only?

[chthus]

There's all those Moms and Pops that Wal-Mart is always blamed for putting out of business.

[Ruthless]

Don't we think the Feds looove to pick on Wallymart because it closes all the Mom & Pop stores?

How many Mom & Pop stores use the same janitorial services?

Wasn't there a federal case that was more or less trumped against Martha Stewart, Leona Helmsley, et al?

[fyodor]

I agree with the thrust of the blog post but Andy is exploiting the overstating, or perhaps misstating, of the issue by people who play the old "Americans don't want those jobs" card. The point shouldn't be that Americans don't want them but rather that Americans can and will demand to be paid a hell of a lot more. Which of course is inefficient and thus makes us all poorer, but just as obviously that's a more subtle argument, not as convenient for sound-bite warfare. But ultimiately, you can't beat the statists in the sound-bite war anyway.

[Former Philadelphia Lawyer]

I suspect Walmart actually has a "pattern and practice" of hiring the janitorial contractor who provides good service at the best price. I guess it doesn't check the citizenship status of its independent contractors' employees, but then it probably has neither the right nor the duty to do so. When you hire a landscaping contractor, do you check the passports or green cards of the guys who mow your lawn or trim your shrubs?

[Brad S]

fyodor - which brings up another interesting point. Why is it that so many Americans see any kind of manual labor as being "beneath" them? I was driving into WalMart one time with a friend of mine, and we drove past a guy in the parking lot with one of those "homeless and hungry - please help" sorts of signs around his neck. On our way out of the parking lot, we were stopped at a light. My friend rolled down the window and said, "Hey, you're in luck. We just saw a 'Help Wanted' sign in the window at WalMart. They're hiring. Why don't you check it out?" From the guy's reaction, you would have thought my friend was speaking in tongues.

[Ruthless]

fyodor
If you want to get too subtle by time and a half: we don't know who'd want the steenkin' jobs if our borders were wide open, there were no child labor laws, no minimum wage laws, etc.
I'm itchin' to find out who!

[dude]

Brad S - I dunno. Ever have a job where you come home stinky and wet and covered with garbage? Can get old.

On the other hand, "manual labor" jobs don't tend to be snakepits of political intrigue like offices are.

So, both have their pros and cons.

[dude]

Brad S - I dunno. Ever have a job where you come home stinky and wet and covered with garbage? Can get old.

On the other hand, "manual labor" jobs don't tend to be snakepits of political intrigue like offices are.

So, both have their pros and cons.

[JSM]

Judging by the foulness of the local Wal-Mart bathroom, I would say that Wal-Mart went with lowest bid janatorial contractor. Same with Lowe's, maybe they should be investigated too.

[Anonymous]

Great! Hopefully one day we'll be able to reclaim the day labor and migrant farm worker jobs cruelly stolen from us as well.

[Patriot]

Walmart doesn't exactly derive its competitive advantage from clean stores. They shouldn't care what they shape they're in.

"Buy Stuff Cheap" that's their motto.

[Windminstrel]

"pattern" of hiring janitorial contractors who employ illegal aliens? Please. It's awful hard to find a low-cost janitorial contractor that doesn't hire illegals.

I ran a commercial cleaning service for 2 years, and we got shellacked because we didn't hire them. Our competitors did, and were able to undercut us by a goodly margin.

[Patriot]

Windminstrel:

The government doesn't care if you go out of business.

They only care if you cost 5 Americans $5/hour manual labor jobs.

What's that? You going out of business cost 50 highly skilled workers averaging $50K their jobs? Oh well....

[Madog]

Pretty much any large janitorial service you find will include some illegals.

During the last strike, Yale hired outside cleaners for some of it's buildings, and there were claims by the union that they were bringing in illegal mexican laborers to try and start a race tensions with the mostly black strikers.

[R. C. Dean]

Ever have a job where you come home stinky and wet and covered with garbage?

Yeah, I can see how a homeless person wouldn't want a job where they are stinky, wet, and covered with garbage. It would be such a drastic departure from their lifestyle, after all.

[Madog]

The goverment doesn't care if you "cost 5 Americans $5/hour manual labor jobs."

They only care if you don't follow their rules - regardelss of how stupid they are.

[Ratherworried]

Kind of hard to feel sorry for WalMart but I am not surprised that manual laborers are illegals. It probably just cost us a bunch of money to bust a few illegals that were paying taxes and gainfully employed. Oh good job George!

How about a new federal program where they bust the lazy unemployed? I'm sure we can waste some Federal money on that critical issue as well!

Ass Darts.

[fyodor]

Brad S,

Well who the hell knows what's up with that guy. Maybe he's insane. Maybe he's alcoholic. Maybe he has a physical problem that makes him unemployable. Maybe he's a plain fuckup. Who knows? But plenty of Americans work at manual labor; am I being a spoilsport to say we shouldn't generalize from one fellow? Americans have more options besides manual labor so naturally we're less inclined to do it. And in fact maybe panhandling just seems like a better option to some considering all the pros and cons. Again, I haven't walked a mile in that guy's shoes so I plain don't know.

BTW, just cause a Help Wanted sign is up doesn't mean they'd necessarily hire him. They'll probably take a bunch of applications and hire whoever seems like the least likely to be a fuckup. And the odds ain't great for a homeless person without an address or phone number. Not that I'm saying he shouldn't at least try or that he's a poor victim of society or some such. But there's lots of possibilities and I just don't know so I ain't gonna try to claim that I do.

[Tom from Texas]

Funny how when I pass our local day labor pickup spot, the only faces I see waiting for those glamorous brush-clearing, brick-toting, shit-shovelling jobs are brown.

The white faces are down at the intersection holding their "Homeless vet/ please help feed my kids" signs, while the black faces are tipping back a 4-0 on their stoops.

Maybe if we had more "illegal" immigration, more would get done in this country.

[fyodor]

Ruthless,

Sorry, no comprendo.

[Ruthless]

fyodor
What I think I may be saying is that without an existing blizzard of barriers to humans and jobs matching up, who knows who might be cleaning Wallymart terlits... could be non-brown illegals, children, homeless (even if they have no address).
In short, whoever is willing.
We can't predict the willing.

[Douglas Fletcher]

When you talk about "manual" labor you should keep in mind that there are skilled and unskilled laborers. Obviously, the unskilled variety get the short end of the stick, skilled "manual" laborers often can charge a pretty penny for their services, such as plumbers, mechanics, etc.

[Pedro]

Most homeless have lost/sold their ID, somewhere along the way. With all the regulations for hiring low-skill workers, how easy do you think it would be for one of these guys to get a job?
They can't take under-minimum, in an effort to get their foot in the door... just wondering. Here in Canada, you need your Social Insurance Card to get almost any job.

I'm thinking of a hypothetical guy who, after 5 years on the street, decides to clean up his act.

[Heather]

I am a young woman who works in labor, and I can honestly say that the majority of my freinds have proven that they would rather go through a long period of unemployment that work in a job that is "unpleasant."
The majority of my co-workers are immirgrants from africa and latin america who unlike their citizen counterparts cannot get their low income subsidized by welfare, but they continue to take whatever work comes to them, and never complain.
Does the government really believe that industry wouldnt be crippled without immigrant workers?

[StMack]

When I graduated from college (longer ago than I will admit to any of you, let alone myself) I was at a loss for what I wanted to do next. The job market for my educational background, journalism, was remarkably poor at the time. While I struggled to "find myself" and get out of my parents' house I worked nights, part-time, in a supermarket bakery making dognuts and cookies (lousy pay - great snacks!) When a full-time spot on the night janitorial staff opened up, I jumped on it. The money wasn't that much better but it covered the rent on a crappy studio apartment.

Now, many years later, I have a soft middle-management job in a large corporation. The closest I've come to using my journalism degree is my blog. I have a wife 2 kids and a nice house in a nice neighborhood in a town with good schools. If my job evaported and the market for my current profession, graphic design, was as bad as it is now, I would take a job cleaning Wal-Mart at night to supplement what I could make mowing lawns and trimming hedges during the day.

[Xmas]

Patriot,

"Buy Stuff Cheap" is Building 19's motto...

Oh...sorry...it is "Good Stuff Cheap".

http://www.building19.com/

[Mayer Kaety]

EMAIL: [e-mail]
IP: 210.18.158.254
URL: http://preteen-sex.info
DATE: 05/20/2004 04:40:05
Assassination is the extreme form of censorship.