It's a damn lie that they can't find Americans to fill these jobs.

[jasmine621]

http://www.comcast.net/articles/news-national/20080514/Immigration.Raid/

There are many more businesses like this. People would be surprised at the number of illegals in this country who are NOT hispanic or Mexican.

[Tunkamerica]

1. I heard Indians make up the largest group of illegal

immigrants in the United States. I can't remember which radio program I heard that on so I'm not going to vouch for its accuracy.

[mac2]

4. Yes...their country is like China with billions.

We can't absorb them all.

[notesdev]

11. That would be 2nd-largest

Mexicans are clear winners in the largest illegal alien group in the US, we've already absorbed about 1/6th of their total population.

But I don't doubt at all that Indians are the 2nd largest, H1-B expirations simply aren't enforced and they stay as long as they please.

[MonkeyFunk]

14. Well it's not true at all

They're about 2% of the total number.

http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/statistics/publications/ill_pe_2006.pdf

[Tunkamerica]

25. You are correct but they are the fastest growing segment

[mac2]

2. That's true they come from all over the world in Sancturay

for illegals Cook County, IL. They are from Poland, China, India, Asia, etc. They get off the plane at O'Hare and never leave.

[lonestarnot]

3. And you expected something else from comcast?

[mac2]

17. Comcast discontinued my CSPANII channel which is the

Senate. I didn't get a refund either. Yet...they can run the British Parliment for hours at a time. God Bless the Queen!

[Sydnie]

21. Did they discontinue it completely or just move it to a higher teer

requiring you to pay more to receive the channels they moved it to? That's what they did in my area. Just shuffle the channels in hopes that they will groups things in such a way as to require more people to purchase the higher number channels to get what they had before in the lower teer.

If I want C-Span 3, I have to pay more for that one too. ARRGGHH!

[Greyhound]

5. In the meat packing industry, no less. People used to make a living, not subsistence,

in this business. When we had unions, the conditions and practices in these places were far safer, too.

[kath]

7. That's right, all sorts of factory jobs used to pay quite decent wages,

*substantially* above minimum wage. Construction jobs too. Many were jobs that ONE wage earner could support a family on.

It's an absolute abomination that wages have declined so much in this country in the past 30-40 years.

[leftofthedial]

19. and the meat was better and healthier

[High Plains]

23. Yes, I remember the days of union wages in the packing houses.

It was red-blooded, All-American companies that broke the unions, and it was red-blooded All-American scabs who lined up to replace striking workers. Hardly a Mexican to be seen back then.

[PsN2Wind]

24. I worked for Oscar Meyer for a short time back in the late sixties

Had to leave for personal reasons unrelated to work or I would have stayed to retirement. Joined the Amalgamated Meat Cutters and Butcher Workers union upon hire and made very good money from day one. At that time Oscar Meyer had never had a strike or lock-out. They simply agreed to abide by whatever decision was hammered out by the other meat packers and the union and continued production.
I feel one of the problems we have today is that we have convinced much of the younger people in this country that working with their hands is beneath them and they should all go to college and become computer gurus. They then finish their 4 or as often 5 years of college with serious debt when they could have been paid to learn a trade and at the end of 4 years become a journeyman in that trade making pretty good money rather than trying to pay their student loans on the big bucks many of them are pulling in at Starbucks and Kinkos.

[magellan]

6. If they paid proper wages, Americans would jump at these jobs

It wouldn't benefit most Americans to take this kind of job for what these businesses pay...although that will change as the economy worsens and people become more desperate.

One thing that jumped out at me in that article: "Most of the 314 men and 76 women arrested are from Guatemala and Mexico, but some were from Ukraine and Israel."

ISRAEL? I realize this was a kosher slaughterhouse, but still. I didn't previously consider Israel to be the origin of "economic migrants"; I always considered it a place people were trying to get TO.

Learn something new every day.

[shanti]

8. right here

"It wouldn't benefit most Americans to take this kind of job for what these businesses pay...although that will change as the economy worsens and people become more desperate."


that is EXACTLY what they are planning for. they want us back in the dustbowl days, when ANYONE picked produce.

[havocmom]

18. Been sayin since before Reagan that the GOP wants US to be 3rd World Country

Their patrons want serfs, not citizens.

[shanti]

20. oh, i'm ITA with you!

too many uppity middle class folks enjoying life in the u.s. of a. for them! they are cutting us off at the knees.

[GetTheRightVote]

9. The corporations are using the illegals from all over the world

to hold down the wages of the citizens of the US and yes they do come from all over the world. I know of people from pakistan, china and africa who are here illegally but came over on student visa and then stay after they were no longer good. It is completely and morally wrong to keep American workers out of jobs simply because the corporations can get illegal and cheap labor imported or outsourced. I am in the I/T field and it is a shame what the corporations have done to us.

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[notesdev]

12. You and me both

I'll never vote for someone who favors bringing in foreign workers until employers treat US workers like they're made of solid gold.

[mac2]

15. Our goal has been lost to bring them up to us not us

down to them. That was the promise of NAFTA for Mexico anyway.

The Neo Cons have ruined the workers of the world and their ability to make a good wage for their families. So between no jobs and over population they flee here. We can not have so many people migrating around the world and in refugee camps.

The whole world distributed and moving could bring on huge wars, famine, and death. The Empire Builders are back destroying everything but for themselves. They bribe and threaten leaders making sure they do their bidding with force and tyranny.

The Neo Con plan is a disaster for everyone but themselves. Even then will they be safe after all is said and done? Remember Hitler ended up ruined and dead with his Fascist plan.

Yet Congress you won't impeach or even decry this direction for the world? Religious leaders not seeing over population is distroying the world and it's enviornment.

[LanternWaste]

26. How about...

How about "employers treat human beings like they're made of solid gold."?

Because it would be absurd (at best) to think that someone should be treated better simply because they were born on one side or another of an imaginary red and blue lines, right?

[notesdev]

27. Borders aren't imaginary

They are real things that Americans have fought and died for. The United States is the only nation on the planet that doesn't take its borders seriously, and even that is a historical anomaly that is quickly dying.

On a very concrete level, I don't think you'd like it very much if we took your statement to its logical end, and opened up the borders to anyone who wanted to come here. What would happen, and quite quickly, is that the standard of living in the US would plunge to the average of its new population.

[GetTheRightVote]

10. The corporations are using the illegals from all over the world

to hold down the wages of the citizens of the US and yes they do come from all over the world. I know of people from pakistan, china and africa who are here illegally but came over on student visa and then stay after they were no longer good. It is completely and morally wrong to keep American workers out of jobs simply because the corporations can get illegal and cheap labor imported or outsourced. I am in the I/T field and it is a shame what the corporations have done to us.

:mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

[Disturbed]

13. Most American Corps & Agri- biz like things the way they are.

Out sourcing, in sourcing,off the books cheap labor & relocation of mfg. keep their profit margins in the top & for their stock holders. They don't give a damn about American Citizen Workers.

[mac2]

16. The farm corporations like cheap labor but we don't even

do that much farming anymore. We can't raise our own food for the table in our homes. Our infrastructure and ability to move farm products almost destroyed thanks to bad government and "privitization" programs.

Many of our farm products are for the foreign market. Even that has been delayed because of a lack of contrainer ships, etc. The oil crisis hit there too. Many containers come here but few leave loaded so it becomes expensive.

A family member works for a huge container corporation. He says the Asian countries are mostly trading between themselves. They don't need us now that China has everything which was our at one time.

The corporations today are irresponsible organizations and their CEOs bad citizens. We have corporate laws but they aren't enforced. They've become "international corporations" claiming no responsiblity. That is just not true and Congress knows it.

At the turn of the last century those laws were enforced. The oil, banking, and farming barons were controlled and removed.

The head of the Agricultural Department should be fired. Now!

[QueenOfCalifornia]

22. Amazing

Hillary backed her husband Bill's NAFTA crap all the way. Why do you think all of the things you mentioned can be attributed to the most horrible, failed crapola policy ever? China owns us because NAFTA gave away our country.

Hillary was not just supportive of NAFTA, she was promoting it like nobody's business. Now? What about her stance on this now?

She even has tried to deny that she was ever advocating NAFTA back when Bill was POTUS -

So the head of the Department of Agriculture, a Bush appointee, should be fired? They should all be fired and the Clinton's should be held accountable for NAFTA - At least it should be included in discussions about how Hillary has changed her tune when it was obvious how unpopular NAFTA has become -