Political Memes

A common counterargument to the anti immigrant sentiment goes something like "we need someone to scrub our toilets for less than minimum wage, and immigrants are perfect for that". I even see some of that going on in this thread. Grosses me out to no end.

A better counterargument goes as follows. Immigrants do not only take jobs, they bring jobs as well. Every immigrant is another mouth to feed, in need of grocery stores, restaurants, legal representation, medical care, schooling, entertainment, and so on. They're the real job creators (as we all are). Being upset at immigrants for stealing jobs is exactly as stupid as being upset at people having children because the child will steal a job someday.

I really hate the "oh yeah, who will do the subhuman stuff then?" argument.

My take on this is usually that yes, your job may have been stolen, but it was not the guy doing what you think should have been your job that is at fault. It is your employer or government that is almost always at fault, with them trying to undercut employees. Or perhaps your education system is shit.

That's assuming that it's a job you could realistically be doing.

In the tech fields companies definitely do bring in workers from other countries to take the same jobs for less money. This can be solved by allowing immigrants to keep their legal status if they are fired, and by having union contracts preventing paying them less than native workers.

Does anybody actually say that anymore? I think the whole "immigrants are taking our jobs" was an excuse back when racism wasn't mainstream. Now it is, so people don't use it anymore, they just say way more racist things instead. It's just a strawman at this point

"They took my job!"

"You sold fruit and flowers on the side of the road?"

I'm hiring for a few positions right now. All would have been entry level in the US. College Grads and early career folks. We now source mostly out of the Philippines for new College Grads and earlier career folks for all entry level jobs.

If you hire from the top, they are mostly the same skill level but 1/4th the cost.

My suspicion is the C-suite now believes that if they are going to pay people to work from home they might as well have them working remotely from home in the Philippines than in the US.

I don't agree with any of this. It is just what seems to be the movement for a lot of remote work companies, both big and small.

If a guy from another country, that can't speak fluently your language and without studies takes your job then the problem is not that guy.

And if that other guy has knowledge of things you don't understand the problem isn't that guy.

Yeah that's not true. There's an entire generation of young Canadians that were entirely locked out of the same start I had in the work force. I worked at Cineplex and liquor stores, and finally a vape shop during school. That work experience helped me get a job in my industry compared to having no work history at all but an education.

For the past 10 years it's been really bad with the foreign slave program in Canada. Corporations basically own these temporary foreign workers as modern day slaves... If you speak out or complain you get sent home. If you try to change jobs they cancel your permit before you have a chance and you get sent home. You take what they give you or you get sent home.

They live 10 to a room, and are brought to work in vans or busses. Truly horrible living conditions in my opinion. And they're working jobs that Canadians do want to do (not universally, but retail/service jobs are typically the first foray a 16-18 year old has into working) but can't get. I'm not being hyperbolic when I say it's made an entire generation of kids less employable because they didn't have a job earlier. It's harder to compete with older workers who had that opportunity and also have relevant work experience.

Edit: I should clarify I'm not going "immigrants took my job!" I'm pointing out that capitalists lobbied my government for a defacto slavery program, and my government complied. Now millions of kids have less work experience, will earn less than older peers who managed to pad their resume with retail/service jobs, and those young kids will earn less over their entire life because they're permanently behind compared to older peers.

The effects from this compounds and I'm not sure it ever fully recovers. Young kids end up needing to take more and more desperate shitty jobs just to do anything at all, with the hopes of eventually doing more in their actual profession. Compared to a GenX or millenial with a decade or more of relevant work experience, Gen Z and alpha are at a permanent disadvantage now and into the future.

I know some refuse to do the jobs because they aren't being paid a livable wage and the working conditions are dogshit. Part of the reason that there's plenty of desperate, ununionized workers willing to do those job, some who don't pay taxes, follow the law etc. Immigrants, especially illegal immigrants are being used as a tool to sidestep law, union rules, having to pay proper wages etc.

If a job can't be done without paying a proper wage and giving proper working conditions, it doesn't deserve to be done imo.

as someone with first hand experience in hiring, I can say that the grand majority of applicants we get are immigrants. and they are competing directly with undergraduates for positions.

I'm not commenting on it. I'm just stating a fact. shit on me anyways I guess

edit: actually I will add my own comment and say that the majority of applicants were not qualified or competent anyways. at least that is my conclusion after interviewing those that did make it past HR. so that does tip the scales towards "immigrants are not competing for the same jobs" since most applicants were immigrants and most applicants were not competent and thus not actually being considered for the role.

Most of the time, yes. However there are exceptions. In Canada many businesses fraudulently used TFW to take positions pretending that there are no Canadians willing or able. The Federal govt is starting to crack down a bit but it was many businesses' way of trying to hold down wages and increase profits. There is also the credential issue. I've known a couple companies to hired foreign "highly trained" workers that ended up being anything but. They had better fake diplomas.

So, here in NZ we have a lot of seasonal workers; e.g. fruit pickers.

Their pay still need to meet the legislated minima. They usually then 'sacrifice' a chunk of that part for accommodation.

These jobs are by (a) majority staffed by temporary workers from the Pacific Islands. The pay and seasonality is unattractive for domestic workers but excellent for the temporary workers from the Pacific Islands compared to their domestic pay rates.

So, we're kind of doing good to support our poorer neighbours in the Pacific? But at the same time we're exploiting them to suppress the wages they'd have to pay for staffing domestically?

I mean, pay everyone better. Duh. Wine and kiwi fruit are among our most valuable exports and the industry pays the bare minimum it can.

nah! you see jobs are trickle down! when some foreigner comes in and gets a good job, the american who should have got that job has to settle for jr astrophysicist, and that displaced the american who should have got that job! and when it gets to me i get NO JOB, or have to SETTLE!

/s

I remember Florida (IIRC) going hard on the deportations a few years back and then being shook that white folks werent lining up for the underpaying overly tough job picking fruit, which is shocking to exactly no one. If I can get the same pay at McDicks for less effort, why wouldn't I?

Conservative groundlings often identify a problem (I don't have enough money to live a comfortable dignified life, I can't find meaningful labor) and then settle on a really stupid source and solution. It's not the capitalists fault for squeezing labor, it's the brown guy trying to survive.

Dey tork err jerrrbs!!

Rajesh Koothrappali?

Plebs attacking plebs over "jobs".

The actual problem is the violent system of serving capital or death.

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