Will Americans Do "Dirty Jobs?"

[DrPhil]

Originally Posted by article

Skinning, gutting, and cutting up catfish is not easy or pleasant work. No one knows this better than Randy Rhodes, president of Harvest Select, which has a processing plant in impoverished Uniontown, Ala. For years, Rhodes has had trouble finding Americans willing to grab a knife and stand 10 or more hours a day in a cold, wet room for minimum wage and skimpy benefits.

Most of his employees are Guatemalan. Or they were, until Alabama enacted an immigration law in September that requires police to question people they suspect might be in the U.S. illegally and punish businesses that hire them. The law, known as HB56, is intended to scare off undocumented workers, and in that regard it’s been a success. It’s also driven away legal immigrants who feared being harassed.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45246594...do-dirty-jobs/

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There was a time when many Americans (particularly certain demographics of Americans) had no choice but to work "dirty, exhausting, overworked, and underpaid jobs."

With the cut down on illegal mmigration (including people who complain about illegal immigrants reluctantly having to fire the illegal immigrants who work for them), will Americans work these jobs? Will the capitalist engine be able to find Americans or legal immigrants who are willing to be extremely overworked and underpaid?

What say you, GCers?

[knight_shadow]

Nope.

[amIblue?]

I love this sentence:

For years, Rhodes has had trouble finding Americans willing to grab a knife and stand 10 or more hours a day in a cold, wet room for minimum wage and skimpy benefits.

[Kevin]

If the wages are good, yes. Lots of American coal miners, sanitation workers and lumberjacks out there. It doesn't get a lot dirtier than those jobs.

[Mevara]

Originally Posted by Kevin

If the wages are good, yes. Lots of American coal miners, sanitation workers and lumberjacks out there. It doesn't get a lot dirtier than those jobs.

I agree if the pay is better, but also those same Americans are not willing to pay the price at the register to keep those people employed there.

[DubaiSis]

If people get hungry enough they'll do anything, but it may take that amount of (literal) hunger before people will suffer through picking strawberries.

In my home town there's a beef processing plant. There has always been a tradition of refugee laborers landing there, for whatever reason. So when they first arrive in the US they'll take those LOUSY but reasonably well paying jobs until they get settled, get promoted or find a slightly better job, and there's no getting them back into the danger and SMELL of the factory floor. I could be all holier than thou about taking that full time job that pays decent and provides full benefits, but really, there's got to be something ANYTHING better than doing that job and I'd be unemployed a good long time for giving in and taking it.

[chi-o_cat]

Originally Posted by Mevara

I agree if the pay is better, but also those same Americans are not willing to pay the price at the register to keep those people employed there.

I was going to say the same thing. It's a vicious cycle.

[*winter*]

I think, at higher wages, yes- as evidenced in the mines. Location has a lot to do with it, especially with the price of gas. Rural people will do these jobs because often there isn't much else out there. We had an opening at a sewage treatment plant and there were dozens (again, that's like A TON in a rural area) of applicants because it's a good wage and benefits and a good career path.

Now in the mushroom mine, they had a hard time finding people. They only paid minimum wage or maybe a dollar more. They had to stoop and crawl and be dirty for 8 hours underground. Eventually they got involved with this program that brings people over from overseas legally to work for 2 years. The first bunch was Taiwanese and the second group was Guatamalean. They stopped the program though- I guess it's expensive to maintain. The whole mine is on a skeleton crew these days.

It's sad, too, since the people who own the mushroom mine also own about 50% of the mines and gas wells (Marcellus too!) in the county. Like it would kill them to pay people $10 an hour! That kind of physical labor isn't for everyone- if people are older with some bone/joint problems it's not really an option. Plus who wants to do all that for the same wage they could get paid at a gas station or restaurant?

[DubaiSis]

And mushrooms are CHEAP. I'd say add .25 to the cost of a package of mushrooms to pay better salaries, but we know it would end up going in some muckymuck's pocket and not into the salaries that many of us would pay a premium to provide.