Unemployment Blues: Jobs and Immigration

During the past few weeks, and surely for weeks to come,
there has been a national focus in the United States on the
problems and benefits of illegal immigration. While the many
sides debate over amnesty, guest worker programs, routes to
citizenship, strengthening the borders, and whether illegal
immigrants should be considered felons, the reality of the
situation remains unchanged. There are between 10 and 20
million (no one knows for sure) illegal aliens working
within the United States. Many have regular full time jobs
while others survive as day laborers or temporary workers.
Politicians defend the needs of business to find workers to
fill the jobs that "Americans are unwilling to do."

Despite the improving unemployment rate, there are still
over 5 million of us out of work, some for a very
considerable period of time. For those unfortunates,
unemployment payments have long been exhausted. With no
regular source of income nor any decent prospects on the
horizon, why would anyone turn up their noses at the chance
of regular work, no matter what was involved?

We talk a lot about the "inherent dignity of work" as if
being productive, in any way, is always better than laying
around on the dole, collecting something for nothing. Such
was the thinking behind the welfare-to-work push of a decade
ago. But when was the last time you saw a politician or
career bureaucrat actually have to take one of those "can't
be filled" jobs?

What are those positions that Americans refuse to take such
that they must be filled by illegal immigrants?

They may require a migrant lifestyle such as farm labor
where workers criss-cross the country following the picking
seasons of different crops. Apart from the back-breaking
physical demands of the work, how many of us are willing to
live in ramshackle temporary huts without modern
conveniences, all for an income well below a living wage? In
California, the old bracero program recognized the reality
and imported cheap labor from Mexico to bring produce to our
tables.

They may require extraordinarily long hours. I have worked
at restaurants where the illegal kitchen help worked 14 to
16 hours a day, 7 days a week. They only left to sleep at
their dorm-type safe houses. They never complained because
they could earn enough in a year to return home and live for
2 or 3 years without working at all.

The wages may be so poor that it is counter-productive to
take the job. Certainly some income, even the smallest,
should be better than no income at all - but not when other
costs are factored in such as commuting fees, child care
expenses, work clothes, etc.

Then there are the jobs that are simply too demeaning for
many of us: day laborer, dishwasher, motel maid, bus
cleaner, baggage ramp handler, stable worker. Quite apart
from the often deplorable working conditions, we avoid such
jobs because they don't fit in with our subconscious
contract with society. Work is our primary medium of
exchange with the world: we give our time and energy in
order to receive money, recognition, and respect. The more
of these we receive, the greater is our perceived value.

To give considerable time and effort and receive little
recompense degrades our sense of our own value. When we see ourselves without value as a worker, it is only a short jump
to see ourselves without value as a human being. We all want
to be needed, cherished, prized: it reassures us that we
have importance, that we count, that our lives matter if
only in a small way. Without that sense of self-value, we
might as well cease to exist, a train of thought that can
lead to suicide or other less lethal forms of self-
destruction such as drugs, alcohol and similar compulsions.

For limited periods of time, we can handle it, knowing that
it's only temporary and things will change for the better
soon. As an unpaid resident in neuropsychology, I went to
work as a waitress at night, something I hadn't done in 25
years. What an eye-opener! I had forgotten the absolute lack
of power involved in semi-skilled work where your position
and your future depend upon the whims of a demanding and
often unreasonable manager or owner. I was warned by other
waitresses not to disagree with orders (I was eventually
fired) and realized that, for them, the position was worth
whatever they had to do to keep it. With no union to protect
them, no knowledge of work laws and industry regulations,
they accepted everything given and then spent hours bitching
about it in the sanctuary of the kitchen.

To take such a position on a permanent basis, knowing that
there is no light at the end of the tunnel, that this really
is all that there is, means giving up so much of ourselves.
We change from happy, confident, caring people into
perennial complainers and grousers, growing ever smaller and
meaner in our outlook, our demeanor, and our attitude toward
the world.

Anyone who can save us from such a fate deserves, in my
book, a vote of thanks. I really don't think it matters what
they do in Washington because they'll never vote for the
money to enforce whatever plan they devise, so nothing will
really change.

It would be really nice though, to see them put as much
focus on corporate off-shoring of those jobs we'd all like
to perform. But the lobbyists will make sure that it stays
on the back burner and when was the last time unemployed
workers took to the streets - 1933?

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