Illegals and The Unionized States of America

It is often said that illegal immigrants take jobs from Americans. The assertion is laughable. Let me demonstrate.

Assume an employer has contracted with a union to employ only union labor. Over time, the employer decides to find cheaper labor and brings in non-union workers. Now, in reference to the agreement the employer has with the union, the non-union workers are illegals. But, from the non-union workers point of view, they have not violated any agreement. They aren't part of the union, they haven't violated any contract because they are not under contract with anyone. The employer has violated his contract, but the scab labor, the "illegal" labor, has not.

Union leaders often characterize the "illegals" in this situation as having taken jobs, but they haven't taken anything. They didn't force the employer to hire them. They simply took a job that was offered. What was the last job anyone "took" from an employer? Can someone walk in with a gun and force The Man to hire him? Can I seriously threaten a prospective employer with car-jacking if I don't get the position or don't get my paycheck? Does anyone get a job by zip-tying a prospective employer during the interview and savagely beating him down to the ground until the position is attained? Do we actually think that's what illegals are doing? Are they "taking" the job from the employer?

How do these illegals even get jobs? Employers give them jobs. Period. We act as if America is really just one big union shop, where everyone has to have the union card before being allowed to work here. But is that what America stands for? Seriously? Even when it comes to government welfare, the situation is not significantly different. Government pays farmers to keep fields lying fallow. Government pays workers not to work. We call it "welfare". Government offers the job, hands out the money. Half of the Mexican population lives below the poverty line. When your kids are hungry, what kind of fool would turn down free money?

Conservatives like to decry union violence. How are Americans who try to stop illegals from getting jobs any different from the union thugs who prevent men and women from crossing picket lines to feed their families? Are the same conservatives who endlessly complain about the shortcomings of the "blue model" and the unions now seriously going to treat illegals as if they were scab labor in the Unionized States of America? Yet, isn't that precisely our beef against things like the perfectly legal H-1B visa? Doesn't the H-1B feel like the employer is bringing in scab labor?

We need to stop saying illegal immigrants take American jobs.
Quite obviously, that statement is completely erroneous.
American employers take those jobs ... and give those jobs to whomever they please. American hiring practices are 100% of the problem. But, once you acknowledge that, you simultaneously acknowledge that your beef isn't with the illegal immigrant at all. Your beef is with the American employer.

The point is, the employment of illegals is not up to illegals.
American business leaders are the ones who supplant American workers.
Illegals literally have no control over that.

So, if you don't like seeing illegals working for a living in these United States, take it to the employer and leave the illegal out of it. The illegal doesn't control who hires him OR who pays him. He's just trying to win the lotto, same as anyone else. He can't even get a ticket (a job) unless an American employer, whether government welfare officer or private industrialist, gives it to him.

Ask yourself: why it is that so many of us adhere to the same script when it comes to illegals and jobs? Why do we suddenly become the voice defending American Big Business? Trump and his friends trained us to do this, they taught us to attack each other. We compete for jobs against each other. How many times have we had to roll over and beg just to keep our paychecks? In that respect, in the respect that we hold jobs at the mercy of our employers, are we any different than the illegals?

Regardless of our citizenship, it is you and I who go down into that mine and dig out that coal at the risk of our own lives so the employer can live in the mansion on the hill. If you honestly think Trump and his friends are going to change the way they work to please either the citizen worker or the illegal, if you really think they don't enjoy watching us attack each other, don't enjoy busting up our quasi-union, then we will get what every union miner ever got from union management - the shaft.