BURNS ME UP: Bush Reiterates "Jobs Americans WILL NOT DO" On Radio -->

Oh man, this gets my goat. It really does.

ABC World News Tonight just played a clip of Bush's weekly radio address where Bush speaks about his immigration policies.

Once again, he just slapped EVERY DAMN HARD-WORKING AMERICAN MIDDLE-CLASS CITIZEN by saying - and emphasizing - that illegal immigrants are doing the jobs "Amercans WILL NOT DO."

He said this last week and it marked a turning point in the rhetoric. He used to say, "The jobs Americans don't WANT to do." But now, it's "The jobs Americans WILL NOT do."

Listen you asshole Bush! There's millions - MILLIONS of hard-working American middle-class citizens who are struggling to find a job, ANY job! Americans who would scoop horse crap with a toothpick just to put food on the table! But we can't, because Bush's pollicies only allow more illegals into this country whom the companies don't have to pay either benefits or a living wage! The promotion of slave labor is what it amounts to, not an unwillingness on the part of Americans to perform labor!

WHAT AN ASSHOLE!!
:mad:

He stole that remark from Vincente Fox! Remember when HE said that a couple of months ago? ABC also reported that Shrub is going to Mixico, next week (I think). Wonder if we could convince Fox to keep him? Being such a good friend an all.

And what did Jesse Jackson say "we've picked enough cotton."

20 years ago, we had carpenters, roofers, journeymen of all trades who worked hard and raised families

now we have crews of illegals, with one journeyman watching three crews while they slap up houses to the tune of 1000s a month

lots of problems with the houses and lots of unemployment in all the skilled trades

just saying... :shrug:

line up for jobs picking lettuce.

Redstone

at day labor places....

Americans expect fair wages for their labor. Companies see that they can get away with paying illegals far less with no benefits and no worker's rights - and to boot, they are thankful to work and will do whatever their slave drivers tell them to do.

A perfect workforce for rotten companies who enjoy using slave labor.

Like "democracy" typical, the system needs a mass of non-voting undocumented
slaves to fill in all the cracks where the system does not cover its externalities.
Slave labour is the american way, one way or another.

If we have learned anything from the drugs war,
criminalization of economic self-sufficiency is
a sure path to a failed economic state.
illegals criminazlied will only work for less to keep
the corporate system from collapsing domestically, or
the corporations will change the laws to their own accord.

We should leave people to wander the world freely, and grow up.
Its time that human beings had the civil rights we give
to paper money.

I have family ties to the immigrant community. I do not unfortunately see them having an adequate understanding of the importance of protecting the middle class. They mostly "go with the flow" as long as they can support their family and have some nice things. They are also being heavily propagandized by the Republicans who are infiltrating non-english channels with conservative talk. I see this as a growing problem.

its all about cheap labor.... cheap labor conservatives..... formerly known as slave owners. We all are part of it...the only difference is we supposedly have the free will to change owners. Owners that pay alittle more.

did stand at day labor places. Don't know how often this needs to be repeated, but it's the employers who everybody should be up in arms about, becoming wealthy people on the backs of anyone who will do their hard work for less than the law allows. Americans would eventually do some griping within earshot of a union, as they should.

You're telling me that the MILLIONS of desperate Americans out there who can't find work would REFUSE to pick lettuce? Hell, I would, if it gave me some extra $$$ to put food on the table and pay my bills!

Your argument would make sense if everybody in our country had a solid job, like it was back in the 1990s. But the fact is, our economy sucks right now, and too many people simply cannot find jobs. When you become desperate, you will do what it takes.

"You're telling me that the MILLIONS of desperate Americans out there who can't find work would REFUSE to pick lettuce? Hell, I would, if it gave me some extra $$$ to put food on the table and pay my bills!

That I had no choice but to succumb to "slave" wages. I didn't pick lettuce, I picked oranges, and grapefruit primarily, but I also collected spanish moss when I couldn't get the fruit jobs.

"Jobs Americans won't do" is a bullshit statement. There are plenty of American citizens who would be happy to have ANY kind of paying job.

Someone here said we should be pissed at the people who employ the illegals and that statement is 100% on the mark. I cannot criticize a poor person for working when they need to feed themselves or their family. I CAN however criticize the assh*le that continues to cause wages to drop by exploiting the illegal workers.

Penalize these employers with heavy fines and/or jail time and the problem will decrease.

Thanks.
:)

Redstone

the illegals have these jobs and Americans are LOCKED OUT because the companies don't want the public to know how poorly they are treating the illegals! That's the whole point.

It's not the "jobs Americans will not do." It's the jobs greedy companies don't want to pay Americans for.

But not at a price as cheap as illegal immigrant labor.

When you say that, you're really promoting a plantation society. Fat elitists with an endless invisible class who wait on the fat fucks hand and foot. There are not enough workers in the US to do all the jobs, that's true. As a result, the worst jobs with the worst pay will be taken up by immigrants. But it is not true that US workers won't do the vast majority of jobs, US workers have been doing those jobs for decades and still are. The question is whether you support having those workers exploited so you can take an extra trip to Disneyworld every year.

we should live without cheap lettuce.

If only legally documented workers picked the lettuce. The pool of available workers would decrease, the wages would increase due to the increase in demand for labor and I believe there would be plenty of Americans willing to take the job.

that lower the wages themselves? You think Mexicans come into the country demanding these lower wages? PLease. American businesses set them themselves. If Americans cannot get the jobs, it's because greedy companies would rather have a cheap illegal workforce that's not tracable on paper. And if you don't hold those businesses accountable, nothing will change.

my post was not worm and fuzzy with hugs and shout outs to the illegal immigrants, this i know.
It is of course small business violating local, state and federal laws that create the market in this country for illegal immigrants to work. The point I was making in my "brilliant post" was a response to the idea that Americans ---will not--- do the work because it pays too little. If we enforced the laws against business, they would pay more and Americans would do the work.

name the movie!

see what they start paying lettuce pickers.

This situation is exploitation of workers-legal or not-and if you can't see that then you are part of the problem.

Favor corporations and companies so they can maximize profits and minimize benefits and wages.

Break unions so Americans cannot negotiate a living wage with most companies.

Outsource and automate everything that can be sent overseas or done by a machine/computer and minimize the workers any given company needs.

Bring in foreign workers to muddle the issue, and to start a class war where people are fighting for less and less from companies in compensation, then get them to fight each other (American vs. Cross-border workers) instead of the corporations or the government.

Sounds like a BushCo. plan to me.

you could raise a family and buy a house but following Reagan's union busting leadership employees are just a cost to be cut.

We hear it every day here.

It drives me nuts.

I think much of this disagreement on DU is the result of regional differences. People in the Southwest and southern California just can't imagine life without a surplus of cheap labor.

Many people here cannot imagine that someone would do something as icky as manual labor--therefore such jobs must the the sort of thing Americans won't do. As someone who comes from generations of farm workers, miners, carpenters, etc., I know otherwise.

I've lived in California, but I'm a native of one of the rustiest of the rust belt cities. Some of my extended family members were UNION coal miners and auto workers. Coal mining is nasty and dangerous, working in an auto plant is no picnic, either. However, those jobs paid enough that a worker could suppport his (or her) family and give his/her children the opportunity for a college education.

Here in Minnesota, I've met people who had family members who worked in meat packing plants....back when the jobs paid a living wage.

Bust unions and replace union workers with the most vulnerable people they can find: ondocumented workers. It's also happened in construction and manufacturing. But few people around here care about that--like I said, they are way too far from blue-collar life to know the first thing about it.

"Fast Food Nation" for an expose on the treatment of illegal workers at meatpacking plants.

I was appauled at their conditions!

The haves seem not to care at all the about lower classes. This can hurt our party as much as it can the repukes.


I don't believe that the price of lettuce is determined by what those that pick it are payed.

For that reason. Higher wages for lettuce probably would equal higher prices at the store. I would be willing to pay more. Especially if I knew people actually made a living wage picking lettuce or whatever.

I think we have no idea most of the time where our food comes from and what the true cost, in human terms, really is. Fast Food Nation had a section on the meatpacking industry. Horrible, horrible working condition, even for legal workers. They want cheap workers who do not complain even though they may DIE on the job due to unsafe conditions.

people have been saying "Jobs Americans won't do" for decades.

Usually it said by someone who wants to sound 'receptive' to immigration reform, but really just wants to support continued illegal immigration to hold back on Democratic issues like minimum wages and workers rights.

The imlication is that having all of these immigrant workers here legally (wink, wink) would 'free up' Americans to do more satisfying and better paying jobs. The real effect, of course, is to swell the numbers of under-employed and push wages and benefits down.

Illegal Immigrants. Damn, I didn't save that post. It is obvious to me that the situation is complicated but one thing I feel is simple is that US Corps and now even the Military are using the cheapest labor that they can find. The perception that Illegal Immigrants are only performing farm labor, janitorial and other menial jobs is not correct. Many jobs are being done now by Illegal Immigrants.

One solution is to make it a Felony for Corps to hire Illegal Immigrants. This Felony should incl. actual prison time and large fines, not merely slaps on the writst as in recent WalMart cases.

Both Rethugs and Dems are pushing for Amnesty, which in my view rewards and give even higher incentives for Illegal Immigrants to pour into the US. Punishing people for illegally entering the US isn't going to solve any problems and neither will a Wall. There are some soutions that will stem the flow but that would take a book to address.

criminalizes the people and lets the corporations walk. What a surprise. :eyes:

Just like bankruptcy, big business now has MORE rights than you or I.

worked in construction for several years. She averaged around $1,000 a week. She quit when it became harder and hard to find work. Why? We recently had a incident of a small construction company who hired illegal day laborers as roofers at the rate of $8/hour, off the books, no benefits. One worker fell off the roof and was in the hospital unable to pay the bills which the employer refused to pay. A local Hispanic civil rights group advocated for him and sued the construction company. They won.

I do not blame the illegals. I blame the employers who HIRE them for cheap labor because they do not want to pay living wages and benefits. These GREEDY employers would rather pay an illegal $300 a week for a dangerous, skilled job which MANY Americans WOULD do for the wages of $1,000 a week, ON the books, with all benefits thereof.

You don't think this goes along the Bush mentality? If you are too stupid and lazy to own your own company and be RICH, then screw you.

As the daughter of a Labor Union worker, this really makes me very, very mad.

How many undocumented workers do you own?

:sarcasm:

and keeps us from doing what really needs to be done: economic fairness, a living wage, fair and affordable housing, universal healthcare, and equal opportunities in employment and education.

The system perpetuates and encourages exploitation whether we remain with the status quo or adopt a guest-worker program.

Americans can line up to do the jobs they do, until then, Bush is right.

The economy suffers when you cut off low end jobs. The high end jobs then just don't come into existence.

Lots of low paid workers are OK, as long as you have one of the "high-end" jobs?

which suggested that a healthy economy depends on having underpaid workers so that some people can have "high-end" jobs. Ask her what she meant by that.

Are you reading the posts or just responding?

next time please capitalize your question mark.

would do those jobs if they were paid a living wage for them!

That's what he really means.

The plantation mentality is alive and well in America thanks to the neocons.

And Bush proves once again where his connections lie. It's not that Americans won't work the jobs, it's that they can't live off the pay contributed to them.
Say a company pays $10.00 an hour to an American cook. But the Mexican immigrant who doesn't have the burden of paying taxes can do the job under the table for $6. The immigrant won't complain because he's an illegal and even on such a low wage, he makes much more than he ever would in Mexico. So the businesses win two fold. No taxes to pay and a lower wage to offer.
You can build as many walls as you like. But illegal immigrants need to provide for famalies like anyone else and they will find a way to cross the border. Nothing will change until businesses are held accountable.

Only the person who takes a day laborer to his private property or business for the day to bust something or move something and pays him for the day, usually about half of what he pays the regular on payroll workers doesn't pay taxes.

Even the most slimey of business operators know that they have to be accountable to the IRS and the State so they will deduct the proper taxes, FICA and FIT from their wages, the ones they file.

What I meant to say was the businesses, not the immigrants. But I disagree that this is a problem based on companies that simply hire immigrants for a days worth of work. We've had several stores in Arkansas busted for keeping illegal immigrants on their payroll for months at a time.

And, if they are on the payroll, taxes have to be deducted. I do know that if things aren't on the books they won't create a problem, but what will create a problem is where did that money go. If they are there for months at a time, you can be sure a phoney SS # has been created for them. They get a check for so many hours worked and taxes are deducted from it. Now a good way to get a slave is to pay him for forty hours and work him for eighty. He's happy with the money.

If nobody is working then who can afford to buy anything. This will bite these jerks in the ass in the end. I say we start a nation wide boycott of not buying anything that's absolutely not necessary. Hold off on buying a new car etc..., fix your old one. Make sure that the shop that you take it to only hires Americans. Hit em in the freaking pocket.

economy. I hate to say it but it's sentiments like those you expressed that brought us here. There is a movement to bring the jobs they can't export the same wages and benefits that the former union manufacturing jobs did. Get on board.

Meatpacking jobs (in the midwest) paid a middle class wage ($20/hr) in the 70's. These jobs provided good health care and retirement benefits because they were unionized. As was related by a worker from this era, the social contract was that it was hard, dangerous work that left most workers crippled when they retired, and the compensation reflected this.

Over the 70's and 80's non-union plants were opened, and the unionized plants closed or the unions busted. As compensation was much lower at the non-union plants, U.S. citizens abandoned the industry, and the labor void was filled with immigrant's. Since the supply of this labor is virtually unlimited, compensation and workplace safety has plummeted.

The 70's era worker, in the interview I heard, indicated that there would be no problem attracting U.S. citizens to the industry if compensation and workplace conditions were similar to the 70's.

Here is an excerpt from a study that describes the change in the meatpacking industry in Storm Lake, Iowa:

Meatpacking And The Migration Of Refugee And Immigrant Labor To Storm Lake, Iowa
http://migration.ucdavis.edu/cf/comments.php?id=154_0_2_0

The Hygrade workforce was primarily male and of European descent. Only in its last few years of operation, in the late l970s to early 1980s, did a few women work on the plant floor. The plant’s workforce was from Storm Lake and surrounding communities. Prior to the mid-1980s, Storm Lake was almost exclusively Anglo, and this homogeneity was reflected in Hygrade’s workforce. Many of Hygrade’s workers put in thirty years or more at the plant, reflecting a low turnover. For many, their jobs supported a comfortable, middle-class lifestyle. Average annual incomes were about $30,000, but some senior workers earned up to $40,000 or more in Hygrade’s last year of operation.

In October 1981, Hygrade closed its plant and Storm Lake lost five hundred jobs. Community leaders immediately set about attracting a new buyer for the plant.

In April 1982 IBP announced its purchase of the plant for $2.5 million. After extensive renovation, this became the company's first pork-packing facility (IBP previously had processed only beef.) IBP’s move into pork processing signaled a major transformation of the industry.

When IBP opened its doors in September 1982, its workforce did not resemble the old Hygrade crew. Hundreds of former Hygrade workers applied, but fewer than thirty were hired. IBP would look beyond the Storm Lake community for its laborers. Beginning wages were only $6 an hour, and health benefits become available only after six months on the job. (Today, starting wages are $7 an hour.) The new plant had higher productivity expectations than the old plant. Injury rates climbed, and high employee turnover increased the strain on local labor supplies.

It appears to me that (uncontrolled) immigrant labor fills a void that it perpetuates, low wages that make the jobs undesirable due to an oversupply of labor, the classic supply/demand relationship. All the current immigration policy of this country does is create a black market for labor, exploiting those who are here illegally, and driving down the wages and working conditions so for legal residents and immigrants the job is a step backward.

Of course, from the lofty perch of a tenured teaching position or defined benefit/trust fund annuity, the impact of the labor black market on the middle and lower class working people of this country seems to be, well, no problem at all. The minute there is any discussion of tightening up immigration, a civil war revolving around accusations of racism breaks out, nothing gets done, and the Iron Heel (GOP Corporatists) laugh all the way to the bank.

What we need is a guest worker program to stop the exploitation of immigrants and end the flooding of the labor market due to uncontrolled immigration. This will address illegal immigration by dealing with demand (employers).

Some thoughts on immigration policy from John Sayles which sums up my feelings on this issue.

John Sayles
From:A People's Democratic Platform

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040802&s=forum

The Democratic platform should call for an end to the hypocrisy of our immigration policy. Our current policy, an enormously expensive cat-and-mouse game, most notably on our southern border, calls on the INS to enforce immigration laws that are openly expected to be ignored by countless US industries and private employers. Some sort of regulated guest-worker program is needed.

Once it is in place, if immigrants continue to enter the country illegally and can't find work, word will filter back and the numbers will decrease dramatically. While in our country, however, those guest workers need to be protected from exploitation--to be assured they will be paid for their work, that their working conditions will meet state and federal safety standards and that they will receive no less than the federally mandated minimum wage (which needs to be raised).

Employers would be required to withhold some percentage (perhaps the equivalent of federal taxes and Social Security) from wages to help defray the costs of the program. Penalties for hiring foreign workers outside of the program would be high enough (and sufficiently enforced) to end the black market in labor that is thriving now.

Protecting all workers in this country is an important first step toward the amendment or abolition of NAFTA and the protection of workers throughout the world.

Most won't work for the wages and under the conditions that undocumented workers will. So you have to get these people enrolled in the unions. The unions are beginning to realize this. One wage and benefits for everyone in that skill.

You're being too kind, though its agreed he is that much.

Illegal immigrants do the work seriously cheap, near next to nothing and corporate multi-national owned America need not pay any pension, social security, taxes (off shore), disability, workmen's comp. Get the sad pict. Money.

Its all about money and with each passing day I swear we just don't count any longer to them.
Profit does. Not humans any longer.

:banghead:

a liability rather than an asset to the wealthy ruling classes. I won't be surprised when they start shipping us off to foriegn places to pay of our credit debt as slave labor.

is to be found in the House and Senate where the Americans there won't do their job and begin impeachment proceedings on the Bush Administration.

Maybe we should!
Replace those in DC who don't do want to do their American job with those who will..and for a lot less money.

Works both ways doesn't it?

haaaaaaaaaa...Replace Bush who doesn't want to serve and protect America, with a cheaper, harder working person who will.


Bush & his Corporate Gov't can go to hell.
The south may rise again, but its going to be the waaay south.

I heard Mark Levin (WABC nutjob) last night and but he was blasting that line and accusing the president of calling Americans "lazy bums" or something like that.

Takes a while to figure exactly out what he's saying when he goes on a rant.

Once the fast food joints started to offer around ten dollars an hour, people who previously "wouldn't have done" a menial job in resturant began to work there. A job nobody wanted suddenly became desirable.

It was also interesting that Bush decided that companies hired to work on reconstruction would be allowed to pay lower than usual wages! It's never difficult to see where his priorities lie.

(i'm just stating the obvious here)

Welcome to DU, and thanks for your comments.
:)

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

There's not one job classification anywhere in America where illegal aliens are the majority of people doing the job. Even in farm labor they are a minority. How can you say that there are jobs that Americans won't do when other Americans are the majority of people doing EVERY job.


D O N ' T L E T T H I S L I E G E T B Y.


He's ****ing stupid.

he wants you to believe.

...would you do those jobs for peanuts? That's the thing. Sure, I'd shovel horse shit, work the night shift at 7/11, or pick lettuce if you paid me well enough. It's the money, not the job.

Desperate times call for desperate measures.

I am always amazed at the jobs Americans volunteer to do. Coal mining is one example. It's dusty, it's dangerous, and it's dirty, but still I hear of Americans doing it and actually enjoying it.

Also, in the past, they've used college students and high school students for such menial jobs, and these guys are usually up for anything. In fact, I've had some fun with that in the past! And I even VOLUNTEERED for such jobs in the past!

All Americans ask for are fair wages, fair benefits, and fair treatment. Apparently that is too much to ask for from these greedy companies.

They went to (for the most part) people who did not even live there. In my mind, the displaced workers from the area should have gotten those jobs, and at a living wage too. But instead fucking Halliburton got to pay illegals less than what they would have had to pay others. This just shows that all this talk about illegal immigration is just a lot of hot air, designed to scare the racists and xenophobes (the Republican base) into voting for them in November. They are not serious about ending illegal immigration- they need that cheap labor to keep Halliburton et al profitable.

Frame it right George... No more B.S.!

To him, america is texas and the phantom zone of florida that stocks out 80k+ votes for republicans.

But in the rest of the united states, there are people who do work that no one else would for free. Volunteer work at homeless shelters. What he said doesn't just slap the face of hard working americans, but people like those I knew who helped dig for bodies in the 9/11 rubble after the disaster. He slaps people in the face who have died in iraq for peace activism. He didn't just slap those in the face who do abysmal jobs just to make a living -- he's slapped those in the face who do abysmal jobs for free just to make this country a better place.

He just wants to make immigrants as legal as possible so they'll vote republican in hopes of getting more money. I hope that it backfires -- and he gains a new minority who'll vote democrat or anyone but these psychos currently in office.

amusing

all because of jobs americans (yaaawwnnnn) don't want to do??!!