“But I can’t compete, the immigrants do it for less money!”
High pitched capitalism noises
this post was submitted on 01 Dec 2024
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guess you should have unionized, then.
My wife is in a union and makes like $34k full time. Her last union paid worse. Unions aren't what they used to be, it's almost like millions of immigrants willing to work for slave wages takes away some bargaining power. That isn't all the fault of the capitalists, although the Democrats certainly took their bribe money.
Raise the minimum wage and enforce it aggressively. All the negative side effects of undocumented workers disappear immediately.
A fairly-compensated working class has disposable income to invigorate the economy. That’s how the post-WW2 Pax Americana worked. A rising middle class fixes every late stage capitalism economic problem.
100%
It's the wealthy who stagnate the economy. Give cash to the poor, that cash goes immediately back into goods and services, ie higher cash velocity.
Give cash to the wealthy, they throw it on their hoard and have the money "work" for them.
Guess money can only work as hard as the working class does.
Yes. Raise minimum wage. $20 isn't too much, even in Kansas or wherever.
This still perpetuates the lie that immigration reduces wages when it actually improves wages: https://www.forbes.com/sites/stuartanderson/2024/05/01/immigrants-raise-wages-and-boost-employment-of-us-born-workers/
Right. So yes, if immigrants take the lowest paying jobs, then the average citizen wage will seem higher because the lowest wages were removed from the pool. That's how average work. I don't think it somehow means the immigrants are causing a wage increase.
It's not just removal of low paying jobs, it's creation of higher paying jobs; that's why employment also improves. As the article explains, the "somehow" is that immigrants also increase the demand for goods and services.
Now we're losing jobs to "intelligent" bundles of code and bots. Is it time to blame the programmers?
Yep. Eat the devs
I mean if the capitalist hired the immigrant instead of me because it allows to undercut wages then I'm going to blame the immigrant for undercutting (union) wages, the capitalist for being a greedy exploitative shit and the system for allowing it all.
What's the point of blaming someone who suffers from the system more than you?
I'm just saying that they're of course part of the problem. If you are taking part in a race to the bottom and have come here to work below the usual rate or conditions, especially illegally of course but also as a result of a capitalist bringing you here, you are causing things to be worse for the ones who could've otherwise worked that job for a better wage.
I'm sure it's not malicious on their part and they're trying to just better their life but that can or course fuck over others. The system sucks and is causing it but we do all have our own individual part in it too.
It especially sucks if they're not in union and are through that harming the hard work unions have done to better the pay and working conditions. Obviously trade unionists and many leftists are going to be salty over capitalists exploiting migrant labour to fuck over unions.
I'm going to blame the person hiring the immigrant for knowingly paying an individual less money because they don't know better or can leverage that person's status for personal gain.
You're not blaming the immigrant doing the undercutting of unions if that's the case (often is where I live) or the system for allowing all of this?
I won't blame the immigrant, because farms don't have unions. The system sure, but that immigrant is doing the exact same thing that more than half the naturally born citizens are doing. Namely, trying to survive on the shit sandwich that the system and the capitalists have forced on us.
But he is just doing it cheaper and in shittier conditions than the rest. That's the reason why people are hiring illegal immigrants, you don't have to pay proper wages or have proper working conditions. And a constant source of workers willing to tolerate those conditions is a reason things stay shit and there won't be room for those willing to work but want a proper wage and proper working conditions and whatnot.
Everyone involved shares the blame but not in equal measure mind you.