Undocumented workers are OK as long as they can exploit them

Our allies in the struggle for a better life

I jokingly asked this contractor a few weeks ago if he was Union. I knew he wouldn’t be but wanted to hear his response. “No way, man” he replied, “I want to make money”. Contractors are among the most reactionary exploitive sectors of the capitalist class. Many of them here in California construct houses in the hills or do remodeling work and drive down to the flatlands to pick up day laborers, mostly Central Americans who line the streets.

But given the increased offensive against undocumented workers more states are passing laws aimed at driving them out. This is an attempt to blame immigrants for the crisis that exists in US society, a diversion that has terrible consequences for the victims while weakening the working class as a whole. It should be mentioned in passing that NAFTA drove some one million Mexican farmers from their land, denying them a means of survival----many of them were forced to head north or starve.

Alabama passed such a law. It criminalizes giving assistance to undocumented workers. Even offering them transportation will be a state crime and like Arizona’s, law, the forces of the state, police, sheriffs, etc. are charged with checking people’s residency status.

But Alabama never anticipated the powerful tornado that struck in April of this year that destroyed over 5000 homes. Rebuilding Alabama is going to take a lot longer and cost a lot more as the Latino community has shrunk considerably in the face of what is a racist and vicious assault on them by the state which needs a scapegoat for the crisis of capitalism. Contractors in particular are upset as it is hard for them to find Labor as Latinos, “documented and undocumented. Dominate anything to do with masonry, concrete, framing, roofing and landscaping.” Says one contractor.

The situation here in the US with regard to immigrants, “illegal” or not, reminds me so much of the situation with Irish Labor in Britain when I began my work life. I blogged about this relationship earlier. Business Week reported on the immigration situation in Alabama in this week's issue and reading it we can see the different ways workers and capitalists look at the world. How the sellers of Labor power and the buyers of it express the world in words.

Our enemy in the struggle for a better life

The Irish worked in construction in the sixties much like the Latino’s here. They were ruthlessly exploited by Irish and English contractors alike who earned a very good living, some becoming millionaires a few times over on the backs of these workers. In the meantime, they were the butt of racist jokes. They were called many things but never lazy. It was always said that “they work harder than the English workers”. So while the bosses portrayed the Irish as stupid, they portrayed English workers as lazy.

Business Week quotes one contractor in Alabama, “Like it or not, undocumented workers are essential to the economy, taking on hard, low paying jobs Americans often won’t do…” .

“It’s not the pay rate. It’s the fact that they work harder than anyone. It’s the work ethic”, says another contractor.
Suddenly, these contractors, are the great champions of the undocumented. They have such a strong "work ethic" they don't care about wages or working conditions. And the contractors' view of the native born "legal" US worker, “There are plenty of people capable of working, if they’d just get off their butts and do it.” Says Rich Cooper with Bell Construction.

Immigrants generally worker harder as they are more desperate than native-born workers no matter which country we are talking about. If they are undocumented, or illegal in the eyes of the state, then even more so. They are prime pickings for contractors who want a good life on the backs of some of the most desperate of us.

The problem with native- born workers is that we have fought and won certain conditions that we have come to accept as normal and we have rights the undocumented don't have., even in the south although slowly the bosses are creating the conditions of desperation that will make US workers “more willing”. Desperation, fear and never ending uncertainty is what the buyer of Labor power likes. Imagine what it must be like to be denied even the basic medical care and have to avoid going to the hospital when you're sick for fear of being deported. A person in this situation will work under almost any conditions.

The Irish workers had a lower standard of living because for hundreds of years, this tiny country’s economic an political life was determined by British occupation. It was a source of cheap food and cheap Labor for British capitalism.

Our brothers and sisters that come from south of the border (or anywhere else for that matter) are economic migrants also. Workers don’t leave our families for years on end because we want to; we do what we can to survive. The employers talk of Latino’s being more “willing” and "harder workers” is nonsense. They are more desperate and more easy to exploit; this is the issue.

Our answer to these attacks on immigrants, undocumented or not must be to raise their wages and conditions here and to help them fight for better conditions in their own countries by building organizationally across borders. Consider that one comment above about native born down home American workers. There’s plenty of work out there, there’s plenty of you “capable” of working. If you’d just get off your (lazy) “butts”.

That’s a “real” American talking about American workers. The difference is he’s a small capitalist. Often these contractors in construction sub-contract to larger firms. They are nothing but middle-men, people who do no productive work but live off of those that do.

As an earlier blog pointed out, undocumented workers are not the enemy of Labor. They are not the enemy of the US workers. They are victims of US capitalism in the first place as US capitalism dominates their home economies. US capitalism has installed, or supported every ruthless dictator in Central America. It armed the fascist Contras.

Lastly, we are all immigrants. The Native Americans they say even immigrated here from Asia and if that is true, they have been on these continents longer. I am a recent immigrant. But I have to say that I cannot bring myself to refer to any person with a drop of indigenous blood as "illegal" that they have no right to be here.

The main point is that blaming undocumented immigrants is just another divide and rule tactic on the part of the employers. Native born or US workers who are citizens must stand shoulder to shoulder with the undocumented among us and defend them against our real enemy, the folks who don’t get off their butts at all except to ensure that others do.