Thursday, April 27, 2006
United Food And Commercial Confusion
The head of Local 23 of the United Food and Commercial Workers was busy yesterday exhorting Wal-Mart to treat their employees with dignity and give them more compensation in the form of higher wages and more health care benefits. Not a surprise, that’s what union leaders do. However, the union head’s admonitions are not consistent with the consequences of his national union’s position on illegal aliens. The national leadership wants illegals to be given amnesty and a path toward full citizen rights.
The national union sees newly minted low income, unskilled citizens as the mother lode of new union members. Once they are in the union, they can receive all the wonderful wages and benefits that U.S. citizen members already enjoy. But a moment’s reflection would show just how fatuous such thinking is. Studies convincingly demonstrate that the flood of illegals in recent years has depressed wages and caused unemployment for America’s under-educated and unskilled workers. Then too, they put massive demands on social service, medical facilities and schools that are overwhelming local governments and taxpayers.
If they are granted amnesty and join the union, will everyone be magically made better off? No. Even if the union is able to improve the wages of the new citizens, the employers who are now hiring illegals, will turn to newly arriving illegals who will be pouring into the country to be eligible for the next round of amnesty. Moreover, the newly legalized residents will begin to work to get their relatives into the country, adding more unskilled workers to the mix. All we will have accomplished is to add millions of low income, low skilled workers to permanent residency and the flood of illegals will only grow larger.
The United Food and Commercial Workers are not just confused; they do their own existing American workers a disservice with their desire to expand membership rolls. Union members ought to question the motives of their leaders on the illegals issue.
The national union sees newly minted low income, unskilled citizens as the mother lode of new union members. Once they are in the union, they can receive all the wonderful wages and benefits that U.S. citizen members already enjoy. But a moment’s reflection would show just how fatuous such thinking is. Studies convincingly demonstrate that the flood of illegals in recent years has depressed wages and caused unemployment for America’s under-educated and unskilled workers. Then too, they put massive demands on social service, medical facilities and schools that are overwhelming local governments and taxpayers.
If they are granted amnesty and join the union, will everyone be magically made better off? No. Even if the union is able to improve the wages of the new citizens, the employers who are now hiring illegals, will turn to newly arriving illegals who will be pouring into the country to be eligible for the next round of amnesty. Moreover, the newly legalized residents will begin to work to get their relatives into the country, adding more unskilled workers to the mix. All we will have accomplished is to add millions of low income, low skilled workers to permanent residency and the flood of illegals will only grow larger.
The United Food and Commercial Workers are not just confused; they do their own existing American workers a disservice with their desire to expand membership rolls. Union members ought to question the motives of their leaders on the illegals issue.
