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There is a seafood processing plant in Bellingham Washington. Seafood plants employ a lot of cheap labor that require no skills or education. My friends family owned this plant (and a few more). At the time, the business was valued at about $50,000,000.00. It was a decent sized operation.
Boats bring in fish on ice. Flounder, sole, rockfish etc. When they hit the dock, guys go into the fish holds and shovel them into brailers where they are then put on ice until processed (fillets etc)
Growing up in Alaska, this sort of work was basically 7.00 an hour work. Zero skills, zero talent required. In fact, most couldn't even speak English and prayed for overtime. Basically, they didn't even want to work if they couldn't work 18hr days - because most Mexicans, unlike lazy Americans understand the value of hard work and pride themselves on working hard.
I was stunned to learn my friends company though was paying them $15.00 an hour. PLUS full medical and dental, paid vacations and so on. These sorts of costs, radically change the economics and viability of the business.
Guess what? These uneducated, unskilled morons were unionized. That means that in addition to getting many times more than anyone else in history paid for this work, they were also never satisfied. They, in their minds, were always being exploited and taken advantage of.
Net result... the company eventually had to scale back operations at that plant and fire most of them.
This is exactly where the conversation where the uneducated, unskilled and to put it politely "unsophisticated" lowest common denominator of society determines they are entitled to more and more and more, irregardless of the economics of the business leads.
And when business is bad... how much money and benefits do they give back? Zero.
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Yes, fewer illegal immigrants working equates to more job opportunities for American citizens.
Rochard
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