We want cheap food. Immigrants provide it, so we crucify them.

Storm Lake Times

To set things straight: The people who want to deport the undocumented are the same people who wanted to bust the unions because they had too much power. Once busted, meatpackers were able to cut wages in half in the 1980s. The United Food and Commercial Workers is hamstrung by the dismantling of the National Labor Relations Act during the Reagan Administration. Since then, rural meatpacking communities have become weaker. Immigrants get blamed for taking jobs that resident citizens could have. But the jobs in Mississippi for poor people have always been exploitive. It’s a messed-up system: Put value on skills so no one wants to work in unskilled labor, recruit the unskilled to fill the jobs that Biff and Buffy who went off to college don’t want, exploit them, criminalize them, deport them, then complain about low wages brought by the great unwashed. The immigrants and poor black people do not set the wage. The boss does. He made sure the union went down. He made sure everyone thought that the Hygrade union man was getting paid too much. He convinced everyone that the union was stealing your paycheck. And now people complain that immigrants are ruining this country.

They didn’t break the unions, and they don’t set the wage. We want cheap food. Immigrants provide it, so we crucify them. Biff is learning arbitrage and hedging to be used later on livestock contracting.

We need a big change in this country.

MORE:
https://www.stormlake.com/articles/2019/08/16/blaming-poor