Dirty Jobs And I dont Mean With Mike Rowe

Jobs. Jobs, jobs, jobs, jobs. The word that is on everyones mind. There arent enough of them. There arent enough of the right kind. Everyone argues about how to create them. The most common complaint you hear in the US is that developing nations have stolen US jobs and that globalization is the cause.

Yet, if you were to ask those complaining most vocally a few questions, such as:

Do you want your kids to go to college or a trade school to prepare them for the 21st century job market?

Do you want them to work in high paying, high skilled jobs?

Do you want them to work 12 hour days in a factory for minimum wage?

Are you angry that we told the world to embrace capitalism and now that they did we have competition?

The answers would be yes, yes, no, HUH? Yet, the call to bring these jobs back to America (which is nearly impossible anyway) continues.

This fascinating story out of Alabama (and it is happening across the South) about draconian anti-immigrant, anti-illegal worker laws and their effects crystallizes the point.

There are jobs to be had, but Americans dont want to work long hours, for little pay, in uncomfortable circumstances.

China is trying to move away from a reliance on these types of jobs at the same time American politicians, ideologues and xenophobes are asking for them back. That said, I duly submit to you this fascinating story from Elizabeth Dwoskin at Bloomberg Business Week.

Excerpt:

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. O! r they w ere, 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 its been a success. Its also driven away legal immigrants who feared being harassed.

Rhodes arrived at work on Sept. 29, the day the law went into effect, to discover many of his employees missing. Panicked, he drove an hour and a half north to Tuscaloosa, where many of the immigrants who worked for him lived. Rhodes, who doesnt speak Spanish, struggled to get across how much he needed them. He urged his workers to come back. Only a handful did. We couldnt explain to them that some of the things they were scared of werent going to happen, Rhodes says. I wanted them to see that I was their friend, and that we were trying to do the right thing.

His ex-employees joined an exodus of thousands of immigrant field hands, hotel housekeepers, dishwashers, chicken plant employees, and construction workers who have fled Alabama for other states. Like Rhodes, many employers who lost workers followed federal requirementssome even used the E-Verify systemand only found out their workers were illegal when they disappeared.