Immigration Fantasies

The NY Times editors transcribed what they talk about in their sleep when dreaming about immigration:

The very idea that unions would endorse legalizing illegal immigrants, as the country’s two big labor federations did this month, strikes some as absurd. Americans have a hard enough time competing with cheap foreign labor. Why undercut them within our own borders? Especially with millions of citizens losing their jobs?

Why indeed?  Let's see what the Times reported when the union accord was announced:

The nation’s two major labor federations have agreed for the first time to join forces to support an overhaul of the immigration system, leaders of both organizations said on Monday.

...The accord endorses legalizing the status of illegal immigrants already in the United States and opposes any large new program for employers to bring in temporary immigrant workers, officials of both federations said.

Legalize the ones that are here in exchange for limiting new entrants to the job market.  Not so crazy.  Let's see how the Times editors explain this:

The unions, at least, understand that there is a better way. They see immigration reform as an issue of worker empowerment. If undocumented immigrants undercut wages and job conditions for Americans — and many do, by tolerating low pay and abuse and bolstering an off-the-books system that robs law-abiding employers and taxpayers — it is because they cannot stand up for their rights.

“Workers don’t depress wages. Unscrupulous employers do,” said Terence O’Sullivan, president of the Laborers’ International Union of North America. Unemployment in his industry is above 21 percent. Nearly two million construction workers are out of work. So what does Mr. O’Sullivan want? Reform that allows immigrants to legalize. “If we can free them so they can come out of the shadows, we can not only improve their lives, but all workers’ lives,” he said.

Sure - if they can unionize the illegals already here and prevent new ones from arriving, the unions will be stronger.  The labor accord also calls for stricter workplace verification and enforcement of a worker's status as well as stricter border controls.  Somehow, the Times editors missed all that:

To understand why that view is misguided, it helps to remember that the country has largely bought that argument and spent decades and billions to seal the border as tightly as possible.

We are maxed out on border security?  There's your headline!  How about workplace enforcement?

It stages raids to pull people off assembly lines and out of their beds and cars. It has added hundreds of thousands of prison beds to hold illegal immigrants and enlisted local police officers to enforce federal laws. It has done everything it can to make illegal immigrants miserable in the hope that they will abandon their jobs, houses and citizen-children and tell everyone back home to forget about America. And how has that worked? It hasn’t.

...Nor have the forces of global economic migration magically adjusted to fit the American mood. Thousands of workers still cross the border, although the numbers are down — a sign of the downturn, particularly in home building. When the economy recovers, the flow will revive. (Economic forces are dynamic, even if our immigration policies are not.)

So improving border security is hopeless and increased workplace enforcement compounds our national nightmare.  Uhh, is the Times reading the same union accord I am reading?

I am left wondering where their fantasy is taking them.  Even Paul Krugman, in a rare break with progressive orthodoxy, once admitted that a generous social safety net is not consistent with open borders.  My recollection is that he backpedaled frantically from this after his base growled at him, but here we go:

First, the net benefits to the U.S. economy from immigration, aside from the large gains to the immigrants themselves, are small. Realistic estimates suggest that immigration since 1980 has raised the total income of native-born Americans by no more than a fraction of 1 percent.

Second, while immigration may have raised overall income slightly, many of the worst-off native-born Americans are hurt by immigration — especially immigration from Mexico. Because Mexican immigrants have much less education than the average U.S. worker, they increase the supply of less-skilled labor, driving down the wages of the worst-paid Americans.

...

Finally, modern America is a welfare state, even if our social safety net has more holes in it than it should — and low-skill immigrants threaten to unravel that safety net.

Basic decency requires that we provide immigrants, once they're here, with essential health care, education for their children, and more. As the Swiss writer Max Frisch wrote about his own country's experience with immigration, "We wanted a labor force, but human beings came." Unfortunately, low-skill immigrants don't pay enough taxes to cover the cost of the benefits they receive.

Worse yet, immigration penalizes governments that act humanely. Immigrants are a much more serious fiscal problem in California than in Texas, which treats the poor and unlucky harshly, regardless of where they were born.

Only in TimesWorld...

Comments

[clarice]

Got to give them credit, TM. They've managed to repeal the law of supply and demand..If prices tumble when more of a product is available it's because the sellers are generous to their consumers and when they rise, it's because they're rapacious..Simple to understand.

BTW the times gave an over $5 million bonus to the CFO who manages the paper into even greater debt last quarter. How about writing Pinch and letting him know I'd run the paper into the ground for a LOT less?

[Charlie (Colorado)]

is the Times reading the same union accord I am reading?

They don't have to read it. Since they're the Times, what they say is automatically what right-thinking people think, whether it makes a lick of sense or not.

[matt]

SEIU have become one of the most powerful unions in just a few short years. They have done this through unionizing custodians, hotel housekeepers, clerical staff etc. They are very heavily immigrant dependent.

[MAS1916]

Unions, like Democrats, are probably seeing more people added to their roles if they allow massive immigration and legalization.

It does show you that Unions have no clue as to how a free market works. The more workers, the lower the wage scale. If Unions keep a grip on production as they have at GM and Chrysler, the jobs will go overseas. There is nothing for unions to gain by allowing increased competition for jobs. Obama is relying on his media lapdogs not to tell this.

[daddy]

Since it takes 36 different permits at a cost of millions of dollars to dig an exploratory oil well, and since Environmental Judges have now forestalled any new Alaskan drilling and economically driven the oil companies out of the country, will Big Oil still be the boogie man when Oil prices rise at the pump, or will the media and Administration have to find a new boogie man to pin the blame on?

[Fresh Air]

Well, you're seeing a microcosm of the union way of thinking. Just get all us good guys on board the ship and then haul up the gangplanks. Unions do restrict others from working by their absurd journeymen/apprentice rules and wage scales, just as they plan to allow Jose who got here the day before amnesty and repel Jose's brother, who didn't.

Unions exist purely for the purpose of extracting above-market wages and benefits through cartelization of labor. The way they make this sausage, however, can't even be fully defended by the likes of Paul Krugman.

[MayBee]

In March 2008, Obama told the Orange County rally:

"Number two, we do have to have control of our borders. Number three, that people who have been here for a long time and put down roots here have to have some mechanism over time to get out of the shadows, because if they stay in the shadows, in the underground economy, then they are oftentimes pitted against American workers. Since they can't join a union, they can't complain about minimum wages, et cetera, they end up being abused, and that depresses the wages of everybody, all Americans.

The SEIU is heavily pro-immigration.

[MayBee]

The SEIU also once had visions of unionizing banks.

FWIW.

[Charlie (Colorado)]

will Big Oil still be the boogie man when Oil prices rise at the pump, or will the media and Administration have to find a new boogie man to pin the blame on?

That's a rhetorical question, right?

[K]

Nothing new. The US union leaderships have been endorsing illegal immigration for many years.

They don't call it illegal. But they clearly want unskilled, impoverished people pouring into the country. It is the best way to increase union power.

Illegals, as a group, view unions much more favourably than Americans. The reasons are both cultural and economic.

Given the chance the very poor will unionise first and analyse the long run costs to society rather later.

[sbw]

SEIU still has visions of unionizing banks.

[ben]

I think we should encourage the Democrats to try to shove amnesty etc. down our throats. I think this is the one issue that really unites conservatives and Republicans and would galvanize so much opposition Obama might not be able to get anything else done like socialized medicine, etc. The blood letting inside the Democratic party itself would also be fun to watch.

[pagar]

SEIU still has visions of unionizing banks.

Judging by the reports coming from Marathon Pundit, the unions have a major push on right now that will allow them to use the govt bailout money to push unions on to the bank workers.

The Service Employees International Union, an organization with more than 2 million members, and Change To Win Investment Group, a union pension fund that owns BofA shares, are making the BofA effort a top priority for the next two weeks. Union reps will appear on TV news shows and produce YouTube videos, circulate "fact sheets" on the bank, host petitions and protests outside bank offices and offer to make disgruntled BofA employees available to reporters to push their message.

Why is SEIU picking a fight with America's largest bank?

Believe it or not, it involves the so-called Employee Free Choice Act, better known as card check

SEIU envisions dues-paying unionized bank teller filling its treasury

Now Marathon Pundit has a new post up showing AFSCME has jumped in also-AFSCME among groups calling for firing Citigroup board members

[MarkD]

Timesworld advertising revenue is down 27%. At this rate, it will soon be worth what I pay for it.

[zeezil]

More than 7 million illegal aliens are holding down jobs in the construction, manufacturing and service industries.

Those are the jobs being sought (yes, this is the same number) by more than 7 million unemployed American workers who have no more than a high school education.

Why would the unions turn their backs on unemployed American workers?

Because backing illegal foreign workers -- and foreign workers in general -- is where the money is. Even for unions.

The Ford Foundation -- the prime backer of higher immigration, more foreign workers and rewards for illegal immigration for 40 years -- has announced that it is pouring $30 MILLION into immigration efforts the next 18 months.

And that is just one of dozens of foundations who are pulling out all the stops to pass an amnesty this year.

The announcement today by the national union leaders is part of this coordinated effort.

What is the business of unions?

Union dues.

The mission of American unions may have been to improve the working situation for American workers but the BUSINESS is union dues.

About the only kind of growth in the union business for a long time has been in unionizing foreign workers. The unions made especially strong in-roads among illegal workers. Thanks to a loophole in the 1986 law that made it illegal to hire an illegal alien, it is perfectly legal for a union to provide membership to an illegal alien. But the unions are hopeful that they will be able to get union dues out of a lot more of the 8 million illegal aliens if an amnesty can be secured for them.

-Roy Beck, NumbersUSA http://www.numbersusa.com/content/nusablog/beckr/april-15-2009/why-did-the-unions-today-choose-7-million-illegal-aliens-over-7-million