The 11 million or so undocumented workers in the US are very useful as a source of cheap Labor. And being undocumented is also very advantageous to the some employers as this section of the US working class lives in a state of perpetual insecurity. Making an illegal turn in your vehicle or speeding on the way to work, getting a drivers license at all, or getting sick. These are all dangers for the undocumented. Being undocumented makes these workers much more "willing" to work for less and to put up with abuse. After being set upon by the employer they are set upon by the landlord as all workers are but to a much higher degree.
So this issue is a contentious one for the boss as many industries rely on our undocumented brothers and sisters while the rich rely on them to take care of their kids, clean their homes and manicure their lawns.
In an opinion piece that was reprinted in the latest issue of Bloomberg Business Week Charles Kenny, who describes himself as a "Development Economist" urges his class to do the patriotic thing and hire "illegals" even if it means breaking the law because it would be the moral thing to do.* He gives numerous examples about how the propaganda about immigrants being a burden on all of us and depriving us of jobs is simply not true and we commend him for that.
Naturally, speaking from the standpoint of the buyers of human Labor power he leaves out a few important points. One is that to describe this immigration, the 11 million undocumented in particular as part of a trend confirming that "people from elsewhere still want to come here" is a bit disingenuous. "Want" is putting it mildly. "Willing" is another misused term when it is used by theoreticians of capitalism to describe the risks workers will take going through hell and hire water to get here and to receive starvation wages if they make it without being raped or robbed or both.
In the case of Mexicans, he leaves out the more than one million Mexican farmers plus their families who were driven off their land after NAFTA. These subsistence farmers, living on land they received after the revolution are not able to compete with the giant US agriculture industry. Con Agra is just too big. Then there are all the other immigrants below the southern border whose home countries have been economically and militarily dominated by US multinationals kept in power by US supported dictators and fascist militias. Some examples here.
Many of the millions that come here, or enter the western European economies in a similar fashion are economic refugees; they are not simply visiting, and they are not where they are by "free will". In the case we are discussing, the economic crisis they face in their home countries is a product of the role of US imperialism in the region.
So the ruling class is ambivalent about this issue. In the case of Texas, Kenny points out, the anti-immigration law introduced this year would make hiring an undocumented worker illegal subject to a fine or two years in jail. However, it excludes home help and gardeners. Keeping the house clean, watching the kids, and mowing the lawn takes too much time out of rich folks lives you see. So the law is what it is.
Kenny goes so far to call on his class to break the law it's the patriotic thing to do as the title suggests. "When a law itself prohibits doing the right thing.." Kenny writes, "...when it is immoral rather than just annoying or inconvenient, and when breaking that law does no great harm to others, it is justifiable for people of conscience to choose to break that law."
More sound advice from the strategists of capital. It is something workers should take note of but tweak a little because there is always a class point of view lingering there. Violating no strike clauses is a good law to break but when the capitalists are the authors of legislation, the judges of its meaning and the enforcers of it, then withdrawing Labor power clearly does do harm to others; it hurts their profits. Refusing to fight in Iraq hurts their profits. Bradley Manning is threatening their profits and he hasn't really broken any laws. And Kenny supports breaking the law to maintain a pool of cheap Labor.
For workers, the undocumented are our allies in the struggle against capital. What we must consider as workers is that even if these workers were not here, the owners of capital will take their capital to where they are. Capital does not like obstructions to its movements including national borders and it will seek the source of best returns. So either way we look at it, it is not in our interest to support Kenny in his view that they are a good source of cheap Labor; it is in our interests to break the law to unite with them for a better life for all. here or in their own countries. It is in our interests to struggle with all workers to raise wages and improve conditions whether they are citizens or not or in their country of origin or in ours.
That doesn't mean Mr. Kenny's suggestion that we be patriotic and break laws isn't a valid one; we just have to change the class content.
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