Thread: PBS/N.O. rebuild done by illegals

Special on this problem right now.

Tune in!

Union workers let go. Average wage for them was $28/hr.

Let go because illegals "going rate" is $14/hr.



Illegals interviewed say they were "recruited" to NO.



LVI Services one of major employers.

could you provide the name of the program?

Originally Posted by thelmahopkins

could you provide the name of the program?

Frontline on Public Broadcasting Network.

Airing now on PBS.

Union workers doing what for $28 an hour?

Originally Posted by JuniusJnr

Union workers doing what for $28 an hour?

electricians

Originally Posted by JuniusJnr

Union workers doing what for $28 an hour?

That would be electricians and that would be pay for experenced ones at that. These are certified by the state but now the work is being done by electricians that ARE NOT certified by the state... so would you trust work done by these guys or would you rather have it done by a person that you know has passed all the tests.

I wonder how many fires will be started by sub standard work done by illegals.

Cmdr Taco, that is quite an avatar!! I had quite a good laugh. Welcome to ALIPAC !

I caught the last ten minutes of the show- and Now I would like the phone number email addy to complain-
at the end-the journalist- a marie - interviews one of the illegal workers and asks him "-how would you respond to the statement you dont belong here etc??/"
he replies:

" I would ask them to look inside thier concious , we are not here to steal anything-we are just taking care of our families"

okay typical -I could write a book on how latinos manipulate / I mean they break the law but american citizens have to look inside their concious?
and then to really slant the piece- maria interviews one of the african american union men who was laid off because of the illegal mexicans;
he tells maria of PBS - that it is okay with him and that mexicans are where blacks were and that it is all hunky dorey - okay I paraphrased - so, it's all okay. we should now feel really good about giving up union jobs- because illegals might have issues with feeling rejected by the dominant culture-
but then pbs- managed to do a two night show on las vegas and didnt even interview a call girl etc- I mean they covered every other sin and form of employment- it's that politically correct kind of programming

I found a sitehttp://www.pbs.org/now where they are doing a poll-like right now- about whether illegal immigration is good for the country. 72 %percent voted the most anti-immigration choice- that it should be severely restricted( as always i paraphrase)
There is a board where you can post -but as usual after I registered it wouldnt let me in-

thelmahopkins, I agree with you. I've been working on this post offline for awhile, so I'm going to repeat some of what you wrote.

The name of the PBS show is "NOW".

Of course, it focussed on the exploitation of foreign labor and tried to minimize the focus on the harm to U.S. citizens.

But it did mention that the foreign labor was actively imported. This is an important point, because many people think that all illegal immigrants just amble across the border to look for work. And the companies just have no idea that they're illegal.

Also, I've learned from other people at ALIPAC that in the last couple of decades, the meatpacking companies have bussed illegal immigrants from the Southern border to the Midwest in order to break unions. About 20 years ago, meatpacking jobs paid $16 an hour with benefits and good working conditions. Now, they're just $8 an hour, no benefits, bad conditions.

The whole reason why we have illegal immigrants is to cheapen the labor force. But "NOW" made it sound like these happenings in New Orleans were just an unusual occurrence as the result of the President waiving the Davis-Bacon act. (Since this was a federal project, perhaps waiving Davis-Bacon was partially to blame in this case.)

But it wouldn't shock me if it's still happening, even though the Davis-Bacon act has been re-instated.

I manually transcripted the last part of the show:

--------------------

"Meanwhile on the streets of New Orleans, undocumented workers like Pablo continue to work on the reconstruction. They embody one of America's great contradictions - a country built and now being rebuilt by immigrant labor, but a country it seems that CANNOT embrace and PROTECT the immigrants themselves." lost_mummy: It's not that our government CANNOT enact and enforce labor laws that protect labor from being underpaid and mistreated, but our government WILL NOT.

Here's an interview with an illegal immigrant who was actively recruited from Nicaragua:
"And what do you say to people who say you don't have a right to be here? You shouldn't be here. You're not from New Orleans. You don't have documentation. You shouldn't be here."

In spanish:
"Well, I'd say look inside their conscience as human beings. We're not here to take anything away. We're here to give of our labor and help in this disaster that New Orleans is going through. We come up here to work, so we can help our families, so that we can help them too."

Then, there's an interview with an electrician who was replaced. (The electrician is a black man.)
"As for Sam Schmidt, he says that even though he may have lost his union job to workers like Pablo, he sees a connection between them."

"How many people have come to this country for a better life. Should I just put a sticker on Latinos and say that you're the only group of people who shouldn't be here? No. I mean, look at what we went through as blacks. We've pulled ourselves up. We worked for a less amount of money. We did it."

"You see yourself, perhaps, in the eyes of these other workers?"

"I do. They're just going to be that class of people that the blacks were for so many years, that are just trying to make it, willing to work, give you all they've got, but never get anywhere. And that's a fact."

--------------------

The black electrician is a nice guy, but I disagree with a number of points. For one thing, nobody is saying that Latinos shouldn't be here. Any Latino U.S. citizen should be here, but Latino illegal immigrants should not be here.

He also talks about "blacks" as if they're all middle class workers in union jobs making $28 an hour with benefits. I think we all saw on the days following Katrina, that there are quite a few blacks who have not been able to pull themselves up.

Indeed, some black leaders blame high levels of labor importation for the reason that blacks have had difficulty making progress in the economy. One of the great 20th century black leaders (A. Phillip Randolph) lobbied for zero immigration in order to help black Americans.

Numbers USA states that Barbara Jordan headed up a commission (appointed by Bill Clinton) in the 1990s in order to study immigration. The conclusion of the study was:
"To fight economic injustice, it urged reduction in immigration numbers that are now so high as to harm the most vulnerable American workers and their families."
(Barbara Jordan was the first black woman from the deep South to be elected to Congress in the 1970s.)
http://www.numbersusa.org/about/goals.html

But "NOW" managed to find a nice, politically-correct guy who's doing well and hasn't thought much about these issues. The message is that we should feel guilty about restricting immigration, as if we're putting a "sticker on Latinos" and saying "that you're the only group of people who shouldn't be here."

I've read that in New York City, the unemployment among black men is 50%.
"What is happening in some sectors of the black community is catastrophic. The Community Service Society studied employment conditions among black men in New York City. Using the employment-population ratio, which is the proportion of the working-age population with a job, it found â€â€