In contrast to the mindless who claim that immigrants steal jobs, The New York Times reports that Unions are blaming employers in the construction industry for driving down wages, but that “It’s unscrupulous employers who try to use workers’ illegal status to do so.”
And the NY state labor commissioner has begun to enlist immigrant workers to look out for violations of wages and conditions in places like nail salons and restaurants.
The minimum wage in the United States is $US6.55 per hour (!) and a University of California Professor is quoted in the NY Ti9mes article as saying that this artificially low minimum itself increases the demand for undocumented workers.
And in Australia Andrew Bartlett argues the case that immigrant workers do not undercut wages by citing the fact that application rates for 457 visas in January were 31% lower than last September, and says that this is ”is consistent with long-standing arguments that large numbers of temporary skilled workers had to be found from overseas sue to skill and labour shortages, rather than to undercut wages payable to workers already in Australia.”
Will ‘they save out our jobs’ be the next union catchcry?
