Need for Immigrant Workers

[Lumpenproletariat]

(in the following video, click to about 20 minutes in, where the hearing begins)

Flatlining Care: Why Immigrants Are Crucial to Bolstering Our Health Care Workforce | United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary

United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary

www.judiciary.senate.gov

This Senate hearing focused on the need for more immigrant workers in health care, where there are catastrophic shortages due to very bad immigration policies dating back to the 1990s, preventing qualified needed immigrants from entering the workforce. Some are already in the U.S. and going to waste, while others are waiting to be admitted. The excuses for excluding them are obscene. Both Democrat and Republican demagogues are refusing to fix this because of populist anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S., which is given priority over reason and the public welfare. The problems are summarized in this Sept. 14 hearing, but nothing is going to be done to change anything, because both Democrats and Republicans -- both Red and Blue fanatics in the general population -- hate immigrants so much that they would prefer to let the health care system collapse and millions suffer, rather than increase the number of immigrant workers.

But it's not just the health care industry which is suffering from worker shortages. Other examples of critical shortages are given, like food production and construction.

The typical Left-wing hate of immigrant workers is the perception that these workers would compete with American workers and thus drive down the wage levels, and basic Left-wing Progressive ideology adheres to the doctrine that wages must always be pushed up higher and higher, by law if necessary, regardless of market demand. Progressives hate wage competition and employers so much that they would prefer to let all consumers suffer, driving down the living standard of everyone, rather than allow in more immigrant labor to increase the production and supply. So instead they turn to their typical employer-bashing and scapegoating of corporations generally, also to China-bashing and the need to "bring back the factories" or "bring back the jobs" from China. This is all the Bernie Sanders populists understand. And when they can't get Bernie nominated to be their champion, they'll join the Red fanatics, even vote for Trump -- anyone who says "NO!" to more immigrants and foreign competition.

This subcommittee session is good as something to let the thoughtful ones see what is wrong. But the mindless masses are not listening.

Seal the border? Republicans on the committee only care about turning back the flood of illegals at the border, as if that is the main problem. But that problem itself is largely caused by refusal to allow all the immigrant workers who are needed. If those "illegal aliens" were simply legalized, allowed to enter and take jobs where they're needed, the remaining immigrants would be reduced to a manageable number.

 

[steve_bank]

We need legal immigrants with some facility in English and whhave a basic primary education.

 

[Lumpenproletariat]

We need legal immigrants with some . . .

But we need to make legal many or most of the "illegal" ones also, because there is no reason for them to be in the illegal category. Change the rules to make them legal. If they can work they should be admitted and allowed into the economy where they are needed.

. . . with some facility in English and who have a basic primary education.

i.e., the vast majority of them now being excluded. Many are college graduates with degrees in health care. But we need lower-level workers also.

The needs are vast: construction, food processing, trucking, child-care, elder care, waste disposal, fire-fighting.

And why not also border-patrol agents and other law enforcement where there are severe shortages. There are plenty who are qualified and have the English language skills, plus who are bilingual, which is needed.

 

[TV and credit cards]

We need legal immigrants with some facility in English and whhave a basic primary education.

Depends what these immigrants are doing for a living. Why would a field worker need to be educated and able to speak English?
Their education and language skills should be adequate for the job they are performing. If in the course of performing their duties it serves to converse in a language other than English to get their point across, then that is what they should do.

If your country is a desirable destination of highly educated, well trained individuals of other countries, every effort should be made to welcome these people and expedite their citizenship.

 

[steve_bank]

We need legal immigrants with some facility in English and whhave a basic primary education.

Depends what these immigrants are doing for a living. Why would a field worker need to be educated and able to speak English?
Their education and language skills should be adequate for the job they are performing. If in the course of performing their duties it serves to converse in a language other than English to get their point across, then that is what they should do.

If your country is a desirable destination of highly educated, well trained individuals of other countries, every effort should be made to welcome these people and expedite their citizenship.

I grew up in the 50s 60s in the greater NC area. Grew up around in-immigrants. Back then an immigrant coud make a living and raise a family. Plenty of manual labor unskilled jobs. Union jobs.

The mother of anItalian who married into the family never learned any English.

It is about assimilation. Wtached a pice on ballots prined in oter than English. A prctcal quetion. If a voer can't rd English how is he or she going to understand the candidates?


I was rehabbing in assisted living for a while. There were people who manged te daily drugs. A few from central and Sout America coud not read meds and chrts and had to have someone translate fr them at times. Somehow they manged to pass drug tech certfcation tests.

The head nurse was from Nigeria barely spoke English. He misinterpreted my drug orders from my doctor and I had a hard time talking with him. He talked to my doctor and and he had a had time communicating.

This is not uncommon. If you think that is biased blacks I ilved with ad the same issue with immigrants including black Africans.

Here in Seattle Latinos were hit harder tha others on COVID. It was reported that a large number were living in households that did not speak English and could not understand the reporting.


The border situation is ridiculous.

I see the same in China town. Chinese complain about how they are viewed but some in the district speak only Chinese and never interact with surrounding culture.

Lack of a common speech in the long run only creates divisions.

I watced a Seattle school board meeting on TV. A very angry black African woman was very angry. She sod her son does not speak English and is falling behind, and wjat are they going to do about it. There were others like that.

Washington is considering native language eduaction for any family that wants it.

Are wesupposed to so ehow provide education, soicl sevices, amd medical care for an unlimited number of people who walk across the border. Invariablt they will group theter and become isolated.

 

[laughing dog]

A labor shortage is simply a mismatch between the amount of work employers wish to buy at market wages and the amount of work people are willing to supply at that wage: employers want more work than current labor is willing to offer at this wage. Basic economics suggests that a shortage will result in market forces to raise the market wage until there is a match between what is being offered and what employers wish to buy.

None of the options in the poll really address that reality. Each option will either cause wages to fall (adding immigrants) or cause shortages in different labor markets.

 

[Ford]

There's so much bullshit in this post I don't even know where to start.

Progressives are the ones complaining about immigrants? On what planet?

And businesses and corporations (that are flaunting the law and driving down wages by hiring undocumented workers) are the scapegoats?

We don't have a labor shortage. We have a workforce that woke up during the pandemic and realized that they have power, refusing to work for shit wages and shopping around for a better deal. Employers are whining because they "can't find anyone," but if they pared back the CEO's bonuses or accepted a temporary dip in profits in order to attract good employees and then kept them around by not treating them as fodder, they might find it easier to fill those jobs.

As for seasonal jobs like farm workers? Those can be filled by migrants, but they need legal status, decent wages, and the same worker protections as citizens. If people want to come here and work construction part of the year and then go back home with the money they earn? Great. Let's set up a system where they can do that, but again...with decent wages and the same worker protections as citizens. If they (or any other migrant workers) decide after awhile that they're tired of going back and forth and want to stay, let's make that easier as well.

Oh, and stop fucking demonizing immigrants. Politicians who say that "they're sending rapists and drug dealers" are not "populist." They're assholes.

 

[Toni]

We need legal immigrants with some . . .

But we need to make legal many or most of the "illegal" ones also, because there is no reason for them to be in the illegal category. Change the rules to make them legal. If they can work they should be admitted and allowed into the economy where they are needed.

. . . with some facility in English and who have a basic primary education.

i.e., the vast majority of them now being excluded. Many are college graduates with degrees in health care. But we need lower-level workers also.

The needs are vast: construction, food processing, trucking, child-care, elder care, waste disposal, fire-fighting.

And why not also border-patrol agents and other law enforcement where there are severe shortages. There are plenty who are qualified and have the English language skills, plus who are bilingual, which is needed.

Those with college degrees should be encouraged and helped to find work commiserate with their education and training and skills.

 

[TomC]

Progressives are the ones complaining about immigrants? On what planet?

And businesses and corporations (that are flaunting the law and driving down wages by hiring undocumented workers) are the scapegoats?

I'd have given this whole post 10 likes were that possible.
Tom

 

[Toni]

We need legal immigrants with some facility in English and whhave a basic primary education.

Depends what these immigrants are doing for a living. Why would a field worker need to be educated and able to speak English?
Their education and language skills should be adequate for the job they are performing. If in the course of performing their duties it serves to converse in a language other than English to get their point across, then that is what they should do.

If your country is a desirable destination of highly educated, well trained individuals of other countries, every effort should be made to welcome these people and expedite their citizenship.

I grew up in the 50s 60s in the greater NC area. Grew up around in-immigrants. Back then an immigrant coud make a living and raise a family. Plenty of manual labor unskilled jobs. Union jobs.

The mother of anItalian who married into the family never learned any English.

It is about assimilation. Wtached a pice on ballots prined in oter than English. A prctcal quetion. If a voer can't rd English how is he or she going to understand the candidates?


I was rehabbing in assisted living for a while. There were people who manged te daily drugs. A few from central and Sout America coud not read meds and chrts and had to have someone translate fr them at times. Somehow they manged to pass drug tech certfcation tests.

The head nurse was from Nigeria barely spoke English. He misinterpreted my drug orders from my doctor and I had a hard time talking with him. He talked to my doctor and and he had a had time communicating.

This is not uncommon. If you think that is biased blacks I ilved with ad the same issue with immigrants including black Africans.

Here in Seattle Latinos were hit harder tha others on COVID. It was reported that a large number were living in households that did not speak English and could not understand the reporting.


The border situation is ridiculous.

I see the same in China town. Chinese complain about how they are viewed but some in the district speak only Chinese and never interact with surrounding culture.

Lack of a common speech in the long run only creates divisions.

I watced a Seattle school board meeting on TV. A very angry black African woman was very angry. She sod her son does not speak English and is falling behind, and wjat are they going to do about it. There were others like that.

Washington is considering native language eduaction for any family that wants it.

Are wesupposed to so ehow provide education, soicl sevices, amd medical care for an unlimited number of people who walk across the border. Invariablt they will group theter and become isolated.

Yes, it is often difficult to find people to work in rehab centers or skilled nursing centers or assisted living facilities. The work is difficult, physically and emotionally and is poorly compensated. Frankly we are fortunate that immigrants from cultures that value caring for the elderly and infirm are willing to immigrate to the US and to work such jobs which are so poorly compensated. We really need to improve the pay received for such work as well as working conditions. This would actually do a lot to improve the living conditions of residents.

It is impossible to tell from what you wrote if the people you could not understand did not speak English well enough or whether you found it difficult to understand the accent. As a young college kid, I was in class with a number of American students who simply quit trying to understand anytime the professor had an accent. As an older adult now, I sometimes do struggle with some accents but that is because of my bad hearing. I have no idea which of those created the difficulty you faced: their lack of English skills, your inability to understand heavily accented English because you don't like it or because, possibly, you are like me and don't hear as well as you used to, something that is often made worse when one is not feeling very well.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Any one remember when immigrant workers weren't a mainstay of labor in the last 150 years of US History?

Yeah, me neither.

 

[Ford]

We need legal immigrants with some . . .

But we need to make legal many or most of the "illegal" ones also, because there is no reason for them to be in the illegal category. Change the rules to make them legal. If they can work they should be admitted and allowed into the economy where they are needed.

. . . with some facility in English and who have a basic primary education.

i.e., the vast majority of them now being excluded. Many are college graduates with degrees in health care. But we need lower-level workers also.

The needs are vast: construction, food processing, trucking, child-care, elder care, waste disposal, fire-fighting.

And why not also border-patrol agents and other law enforcement where there are severe shortages. There are plenty who are qualified and have the English language skills, plus who are bilingual, which is needed.

Those with college degrees should be encouraged and helped to find work commiserate with their education and training and skills.

Yep. Unfortunately there's some (often bullshit) reasons that doesn't happen.

There was this guy I worked with last year. First trainer I had while testing the autonomous cars. Ahmed. Super nice guy. He'd worked as an Amazon delivery driver before, and had a really bad experience. Our job was easier, and he stayed there over a year. Why was he working as a delivery driver and then testing vehicles? Because his engineering degree he earned at the University of Baghdad didn't count over here. It sucks, because he was a hard worker, very intelligent, and held no ill will towards the US for bombing the shit out of his country.

 

[TomC]

Any one remember when immigrant workers weren't a mainstay of labor in the last 150 years of US History?

Yeah, me neither.

Immigrants Made America Great, in the first place!

Trump's Wall was the most Unamerican of his many policy campaign promises.
Tom

 

[Gun Nut]

Any one remember when immigrant workers weren't a mainstay of labor in the last 150 years of US History?

Yeah, me neither.

Immigrants Made America Great, in the first place!

Trump's Wall was the most Unamerican of his many policy campaign promises.
Tom

"Trump's Wall" was a marketing ploy to fleece millions of people out of hundreds of millions of dollars in the form of donations to non-existent organizations and "fronts" to "save America from the immigrants"... and the opportunists that were doing that seem to be headed to jail for fraud right about now...

 

[Toni]

Any one remember when immigrant workers weren't a mainstay of labor in the last 150 years of US History?

Yeah, me neither.

Immigrants Made America Great, in the first place!

Trump's Wall was the most Unamerican of his many policy campaign promises.
Tom

Almost certain there's a significant number of people who felt America was pretty great BEFORE all of the immigration started about 5 or 6 hundred years ago.

 

[bilby]

Any one remember when immigrant workers weren't a mainstay of labor in the last 150 years of US History?

Yeah, me neither.

Immigrants Made America Great, in the first place!

Trump's Wall was the most Unamerican of his many policy campaign promises.
Tom

Almost certain there's a significant number of people who felt America was pretty great BEFORE all of the immigration started about 5 or 6 hundred years ago.

Nah, the place really went to pieces when those Clovis people turned up with their fancy arrowheads. Shoulda built a wall across the Bering Land Bridge.

I mean, I am sure some of them are fine people, but you wouldn't want your daughter to marry one...

...if only because they've been dead for 11,000 years. I told you recognising same-sex marriages was a slippery slope. Now people want to marry folks who have been dead for more than a hundred centuries.

 

[Toni]

Any one remember when immigrant workers weren't a mainstay of labor in the last 150 years of US History?

Yeah, me neither.

Immigrants Made America Great, in the first place!

Trump's Wall was the most Unamerican of his many policy campaign promises.
Tom

Almost certain there's a significant number of people who felt America was pretty great BEFORE all of the immigration started about 5 or 6 hundred years ago.

Nah, the place really went to pieces when those Clovis people turned up with their fancy arrowheads. Shoulda built a wall across the Bering Land Bridge.

I mean, I am sure some of them are fine people, but you wouldn't want your daughter to marry one...

...if only because they've been dead for 11,000 years. I told you recognising same-sex marriages was a slippery slope. Now people want to marry folks who have been dead for more than a hundred centuries.

Yeah, despite our very best efforts, past and present, we still have indigenous people walking around alive and free. European settlers/invaders have not managed to kill them all, despite some really dedicated efforts.

 

[Ford]

Any one remember when immigrant workers weren't a mainstay of labor in the last 150 years of US History?

Yeah, me neither.

Immigrants Made America Great, in the first place!

Trump's Wall was the most Unamerican of his many policy campaign promises.
Tom

Almost certain there's a significant number of people who felt America was pretty great BEFORE all of the immigration started about 5 or 6 hundred years ago.

Nah, the place really went to pieces when those Clovis people turned up with their fancy arrowheads. Shoulda built a wall across the Bering Land Bridge.

I mean, I am sure some of them are fine people, but you wouldn't want your daughter to marry one...

...if only because they've been dead for 11,000 years. I told you recognising same-sex marriages was a slippery slope. Now people want to marry folks who have been dead for more than a hundred centuries.

Yeah, despite our very best efforts, past and present, we still have indigenous people walking around alive and free. European settlers/invaders have not managed to kill them all, despite some really dedicated efforts.

Hey now, it's not like we didn't give them a chance. Sure, the whole infected blankets thing was like...a clerical error, but we gave those natives what they really needed: A challenge! Those indigenous people needed some bootstrap-pulling, so we simply "inspired" their "creative spirit" by...you know...moving them hundreds of miles to different, infertile lands so they could farm exciting new crops like...nothing...because the ground is worthless! And sure, some of them were hunters, so we took those people away from their hunting grounds (after we killed all the wildlife they survived on) and tried to turn them into farmers, but that was just to "light a fire" under them. Sometimes literally lighting a fire under their teepees, but anyway, ya gotta massacre some eggs to make an omelet, right?

And when none of that worked we figured they weren't "white" enough, took their kids away and enrolled them in "Indian Schools" where we'd strip them of their culture, language, and dress! You're thinking "wait...are you Canada?" but no. I'm here in Phoenix, where we have a road running through town called "Indian School Road." Guess what was located there? Sure, we didn't do the whole "mass graves of children we killed" like Canada, but if you're ever in the Phoenix area and want a dose of what Manifest Destiny looked like in the 20th Century, stop by the Heard Museum and check out the permanent exhibit! It's fun for all ages!

Now where were we? Ah yes. Immigration. There's so many stories about immigration in the news right now. Is it Texas who sent the immigrants to Martha's Vineyard, or was that Florida? I forget. Anyway, about Florida...have you been to Miami? It's like...there's a lot of Spanish speaking people there for some reason, but they're not "illegal immigrants." Weird. How did they get there? Why is Gloria Estefan so entertaining? Why are the Cuban sandwiches there so tasty? Oh, I know! Because if you're a brown-skinned Spanish-speaking person who crossed 90 miles of water to arrive in Florida, you're a "refugee" and you get allowed in automatically, but if you're a brown-skinned Spanish-speaking person who waded across the Rio Grande to work a landscaping job, you're an invading drug-dealing rapist who must be (checks notes) sent to Vice President Harris' official residence to "own the libs."

Because...reasons.


Did I miss anything?

 

[atrib]

Because his engineering degree he earned at the University of Baghdad didn't count over here.

What do you mean, it didn't count over here?

 

[Patooka]

Both Democrat and Republican demagogues are refusing to fix this because of populist anti-immigrant sentiment in the U.S

I don't even live in the US and even I know this is a bullshit argument.

I guess lumpy is working extra hard to show what he is about.