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deaddmwalking
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Post by deaddmwalking »

Of course! And I'm sure that's top item on the agenda for the new Republican administration! But until that gets done, if the workers go away the work doesn't get done.

Which is probably a bigger problem then potential 'system drain' caused by illegal immigrants (which is still an open question - most economists seem to think that illegal immigrants contribute more than they cost in part because they don't qualify for a lot of the benefits that legal residents do, and they still do pay into the system in various ways).
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Post by Mechalich »

deaddmwalking wrote:Of course! And I'm sure that's top item on the agenda for the new Republican administration! But until that gets done, if the workers go away the work doesn't get done.
Certainly true. I mostly commented because 'jobs that Americans won't do' is a really unfortunate phrase. It plays right into the hands of cruel businesses by reinforcing conservative stereotypes of low-income minorities in the US and reinforces us vs. them cultural conflict.

The implication that there are jobs available, but that people would rather live off public assistance than go out and take them serves as the perfect justification for all sorts of conservative BS about makers vs. takers and earned benefits and self-sufficiency. It's a bad meme that needs to be combatted.
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Post by maglag »

deaddmwalking wrote:Of course! And I'm sure that's top item on the agenda for the new Republican administration! But until that gets done, if the workers go away the work doesn't get done.
Or, you know, the companies are forced to bite it and start offering better working conditions and salaries to attract legal workers because stuff like food production is work that simply has to be done.

That was already discussed on another thread here recently and everything.
Kaelik wrote:Indeed most oppression isn't just for the joy of oppression. If you tell slaves "We will whip you if you don't pick the cotton" and 100% of them say "tough shit" and that doesn't change when you whip them, you don't keep trying to make them pick cotton, or at least you try a different system.

That's not a moral sense, that's just pointing out that if your goal in oppression isn't being achieved, then time to stop.
So yes ending illegal work in crappy conditions would have the bright side of ending illegal work in crappy conditions.
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Post by Ancient History »

Mechalich wrote:
deaddmwalking wrote:Of course! And I'm sure that's top item on the agenda for the new Republican administration! But until that gets done, if the workers go away the work doesn't get done.
Certainly true. I mostly commented because 'jobs that Americans won't do' is a really unfortunate phrase. It plays right into the hands of cruel businesses by reinforcing conservative stereotypes of low-income minorities in the US and reinforces us vs. them cultural conflict.

The implication that there are jobs available, but that people would rather live off public assistance than go out and take them serves as the perfect justification for all sorts of conservative BS about makers vs. takers and earned benefits and self-sufficiency. It's a bad meme that needs to be combatted.
Bullshit. Those same people that make those arguments also argue that poor people shouldn't be allowed any pleasures because all their money should be going into necessities or savings. They're people that think economics is a morality play, and if you're poor then you deserve to fucking suffer until you aren't poor anymore. Fuck those people.
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Post by Mechalich »

[quote="Ancient History]Bullshit. Those same people that make those arguments also argue that poor people shouldn't be allowed any pleasures because all their money should be going into necessities or savings. They're people that think economics is a morality play, and if you're poor then you deserve to fucking suffer until you aren't poor anymore. Fuck those people.[/quote]

I said it was conservative BS. Yes those people think economics is a morality play. That's a crappy viewpoint which is wrong on many levels and is destructive to the country. However, 'jobs Americans won't do' is a talking point that synergizes with that horrible viewpoint, providing reinforcement of the conservative orthodoxy and serving to turn mostly white conservative low-income workers against low-income immigrants (many of whom are legal, including lots of refugees who absolutely love America) who should be their natural allies against exploitive management.

The viewpoint that economics is a morality play is extremely corrosive to labor issues in the United States and it needs to be fought, hard, on just about every level. When liberal politicians and commentators claim that there are Americans who'd rather sit on their behinds and collect government assistance rather than work tough jobs - which is how conservative minds interpret such comments - it reinforces their confirmation bias, their racism, and erodes whatever vestiges of labor solidarity still remain.

Conservatives in America don't need any help being awful, and liberals saying there are 'jobs Americans won't do' helps them. Considering we're playing from behind, I'd like to avoid own goals.
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Post by Kaelik »

You are an idiot. Nothing about "Jobs Americans won't do" has anything to do with welfare, and is the literal turning point at which you can force lower income white conservatives to acknowledge that liberal policies are better. That's the literal reason they support 40 weeks and overtime and minimum wages.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

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Post by Mechalich »

Kaelik wrote:You are an idiot. Nothing about "Jobs Americans won't do" has anything to do with welfare, and is the literal turning point at which you can force lower income white conservatives to acknowledge that liberal policies are better. That's the literal reason they support 40 weeks and overtime and minimum wages.
It has everything to do with welfare in the minds of the GOP base.

There are working-age people on public assistance in the US. This is actually mostly not welfare (TANF) but represents a bunch of other programs cobbled together and includes a not insignificant number of people who are claiming SS Disability with somewhat dubious credentials. Conservatives believe certain things about these people. First, they believe there are a lot more of them than there actually are. Second, they believe that many, perhaps most, of them are lazy bums who are fully capable of working and have chosen to scam everyone else instead. Most have experienced anecdotally cases of people doing just that and they mistakenly believe it to be the general case rather than a rare exception.

When these people here about illegal immigrants getting 'jobs that Americans won't do' their minds don't come up with an explanation based in labor exploitation, corporate greed, and the power dynamics employees can deploy against people without legal protections, they default to an explanation based in their morality play economics (also racism, plenty of racism is involved too). They believe that it is the fault of unemployed Americans fault for not finding and taking those jobs.

This is one of the many reasons that GOP base members are so virulently anti-immigration - they actually believe that mass deportations would allow people on public assistance to all get jobs and thereby it is an essentially policy to 'get people off the dole.'

It is all deeply twisted, but the idea that shipping all the Mexicans home would be a jobs bonanza for groups like unskilled African American workers is persistent in the GOP base. They are often totally clueless about the actual conditions involved in modern agricultural labor - in large part because many of the boomer age ones have memories of working in the industry decades ago when it was rather more benign.

Given all that saying that there are 'jobs Americans won't do' is bad messaging. It provides the wrong impression and conservatives use it as ammunition for both their 'minorities are lazy' and 'liberals are elitist snobs' mental pillars. That latter is particularly important in rural states, where even today a fairly large number of younger conservatives have worked briefly on farms at some point and consider farm labor to be perfectly acceptable as a career.

Yes working-class conservatives mostly support the 40-hour work week and overtime and the minimum wage, but they are often completely unaware of just how often those rules are violated in many industries. That's mostly because they have social capital and access to middle class networks and therefore can effectively fight to preserve those rights (this is much the same reason why many working class whites just don't understand how the predatory municipal policing regimes in places like Ferguson can happen). So when they hear things like 'jobs Americans won't do' their reaction boils down to something like 'liberals think they're too good to flip burgers, they just want to leech off the government.' These are the people who believed the whole Obamaphone BS after all.

This aspect of modern American conservative/reactionary thought is awful. It is incredibly damaging to the country as hold, not least to those who hold these views. It needs to be fought rigorously, not fed inadvertently.
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Post by Blade »

Given all that saying that there are 'jobs Americans won't do' is bad messaging. It provides the wrong impression and conservatives use it as ammunition for both their 'minorities are lazy'
Minorities are lazy because they're willing to do soul-crushing jobs?
I know that conservatives thinking is really weird, but I'd like to know how they can reconcile the two concepts.
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Post by sandmann »

Blade wrote:
Given all that saying that there are 'jobs Americans won't do' is bad messaging. It provides the wrong impression and conservatives use it as ammunition for both their 'minorities are lazy'
Minorities are lazy because they're willing to do soul-crushing jobs?
I know that conservatives thinking is really weird, but I'd like to know how they can reconcile the two concepts.
"Minorities" in this case means "black people". Aka "poor people" aka "the moocher class". Those words mean pretty much the same in some peoples minds.

Latinos do not fall under "minorities", the buzzword here is "illegals".
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Post by Kaelik »

Mechalich wrote:Most have experienced anecdotally cases of people doing just that and they mistakenly believe it to be the general case rather than a rare exception.
I think fundamentally you are confusing the lies their politicians tell with things that poor white GOPers believe.

First off, none of them have any anecdotal experience of moochers, that's just a lie that people tell when they want to complain about black people, but PS, those aren't the poor white people doing that, those are the politicians and news media.

Likewise the rest of your thing, You keep associating "things Paul Ryan says" with "things all poor white people believe" which is always going to mean that you advocate dumb shit because you are arguing to the wrong people.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

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Post by Maj »

Kaelik wrote:I think fundamentally you are confusing the lies their politicians tell with things that poor white GOPers believe.

First off, none of them have any anecdotal experience of moochers, that's just a lie that people tell when they want to complain about black people, but PS, those aren't the poor white people doing that, those are the politicians and news media.
It has been my experience that the people who have mooching stories are almost always telling something about themselves. And because they've mooched (and totally would again), they project that onto the rest of the country.
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Kaelik
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Post by Kaelik »

Maj wrote:
Kaelik wrote:I think fundamentally you are confusing the lies their politicians tell with things that poor white GOPers believe.

First off, none of them have any anecdotal experience of moochers, that's just a lie that people tell when they want to complain about black people, but PS, those aren't the poor white people doing that, those are the politicians and news media.
It has been my experience that the people who have mooching stories are almost always telling something about themselves. And because they've mooched (and totally would again), they project that onto the rest of the country.
I literally rode the train this morning listening to 3 people complain about "Tree jumpers" (I presume a derogatory name for black people, just given the rest of their objects of ire) and how terrible Kaepernick, Obama, Michelle Obama are. At the very end of the conversation, it turned out that all three of them were on Disability........

Now, not saying they don't deserve disability, because at least the one who explained in detail sounded like he does. But god it hurts to hear people this dumb.
DSMatticus wrote:Kaelik gonna kaelik. Whatcha gonna do?
The U.S. isn't a democracy and if you think it is, you are a rube.

That's libertarians for you - anarchists who want police protection from their slaves.
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Post by hyzmarca »

maglag wrote: Or, you know, the companies are forced to bite it and start offering better working conditions and salaries to attract legal workers because stuff like food production is work that simply has to be done.
No one in crop harvesting gets salaries. Crop harvesting is piece, work. They're paid per unit harvested. This means that their pay rate is determined entirely by their work speed. Rates are set according to what skilled, experienced, and fit harvesters can do in an hour, and it's pretty good. Priority jobs can be worth up to $30 an hour if you're good enough.

The problem is that unemployed Americans who saw the ads saying that they could potentially make $15-$30 an hour and thought it was a great opportunity are not nearly as fast or as skilled as the migrant workers who have been doing it since they were 12. Therefore the Americans are getting about $2 an hour while the migrants are getting $20 an hour, for the exact same jobs.


This isn't a working conditions issue. This is the issue that picking is highly-skilled work that requires years of experience in order to do quickly enough and until you get that experience you're pay is going to be absolute shit.
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deaddmwalking
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Post by deaddmwalking »

I don't believe you, and I'd like to see your evidence.

Here's some to contradict you.
Low Wages wrote: How much do farm workers earn?
Based on the most recent National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS)– a report published by the U.S. Department of Labor– farm workers work 42 hours per week and earn $7.25 per hour on average, but this “average” varies greatly. For example, workers who have worked for the same employer for multiple years earn more than other workers. Those who have been with an employer for a year or less earn an average of $6.76 per hour, and those who have been with the same employer for at least 6 years earn an average of $8.05 per hour.
Annually, the average income of crop workers is between $10,000 to $12,499 for individuals and $15,000 to $17,499 for a family. To give you an idea, the federal poverty line is $10,830 for an individual or $22,050 for a family of four (in 2009).
Thus, according to NAWS, 30% of all farm workers had total family incomes below the poverty line.
Even if we accept that via piece rate some people earn $30/hour, that would be a misleading figure. The reason the workers are called 'migrant workers' is that they must move based on the harvests available. As a result, work is necessarily somewhat seasonal.

I don't think anyone...anyone...regularly makes $30+/hour doing any type of harvest activity.
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Post by fbmf »

Kaelik wrote:
Maj wrote:
Kaelik wrote:I think fundamentally you are confusing the lies their politicians tell with things that poor white GOPers believe.

First off, none of them have any anecdotal experience of moochers, that's just a lie that people tell when they want to complain about black people, but PS, those aren't the poor white people doing that, those are the politicians and news media.
It has been my experience that the people who have mooching stories are almost always telling something about themselves. And because they've mooched (and totally would again), they project that onto the rest of the country.
I literally rode the train this morning listening to 3 people complain about "Tree jumpers" (I presume a derogatory name for black people, just given the rest of their objects of ire) and how terrible Kaepernick, Obama, Michelle Obama are. At the very end of the conversation, it turned out that all three of them were on Disability........

Now, not saying they don't deserve disability, because at least the one who explained in detail sounded like he does. But god it hurts to hear people this dumb.
"Treejumper" is slang for sex offender.

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Post by Whipstitch »

You're not making $30 an hour unless you're an Olympian of picking. Hell, unless you know how to operate machinery and can score a job as a soybean harvester you're probably not even going to make $15 an hour and god help you if you're just a berry picker.
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Post by sendaz »

To be fair Hyzmarca did say priority jobs, which usually means when its a larger than normal crop or they are short handed, which means the farmer has to pay more to get people in to bring the crop in on time.
In 2012 Washington state apple growers had a bumper crop and fewer than average pickers, so there were concerns up to 25% of the crop would be left to rot, so the price for picking went up to around $28 a bin, which a prime picker could fill in an hour.

But yeah, that is more the exception than any norm.
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Post by OgreBattle »

lol this isn't a parody:

Image
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Post by Koumei »

Yeah, that is seriously what our government prints out and advertises overseas. And that's basically the least terrible thing they do in regards to asylum seekers and refugees. Like, if it were limited to a reverse-tourism-advertisement campaign, then everything would be peachy.
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Post by Blade »

Meanwhile in France the campaign for the 2017 presidential elections has unofficially started, and it's already a nice clusterfuck:

The French presidential election happens in two turns: the two candidates who come on top of the first turn get to participate in the second turn.

Historically, these have been the left (PS) and right (RPR then UMP and now LR). In 2002, we got a surprise when the extreme right FN got to the second turn.

The current president, François Hollande is from ths PS, but he and his government took a lot of decisions you'd expect from a right government. This made him unpopular with the supporters of the left but since he's still officially from the PS he's still unpopular with the right.

Due to this, we expected to have the left be completely disorganized, and get once again a second turn with the choice between LR and the FN, except that this time LR leans far more to the right that Chirac did in 2002.

Les Républicains (LR, the right party) had a primary election, and they chose François Fillon, a former prime minister of Sarkozy, who's got a "traditionalist catholic" vibe. He's not (at least publicly) a crazy extreme right nut, he pushes for the same ideas but hides them behind a veil of respectability.

For the PS, it seemed quite difficult to get any good result with the low popularity of the current government. They also had a primary election, and it was expected that the current prime minister, Manuel Valls, would win it for some reason. Except that he didn't, instead it's someone almost nobody saw coming: Benoit Hamon. He's an actual leftist, who supports a universal basic income and considers that economic growth shouldn't be an end in itself.

This is creating a schism inside the PS, with some members deciding to join Emmanuel Macron, a former PS member who took some right-leaning decisions when he was part of the government and decided to start his own party. Nobody knows what he actually intends to do, it's suspected that he's got a center-right agenda but so far his campaign has been "I'm great, you should totally support me".

Now there's the question of whether Benoit Hamon, the left candidate will join Mélanchon, the extreme-left candidate. It's likely that they can't achieve any good result without joining, but it's unlikely that either will accept to bow before the other.

And now it has been revealed that François Fillon, the right candidate, gave his wife and children fake parliamentary jobs, getting them a lot of public money for no work.

Meanwhile, Marine le Pen, the FN candidate, has got the support of Putin and Wikileaks is already starting to "leak" stuff about François Fillon. But it's still unclear if a majority of the population is actually willing to vote for her. It's likely that given the choice between an actual left candidate and her, most of the right supporters will choose her, but it's still hard to tell.

There are still a few months left before the elections, but so far it's one of the most complex presidential campaign we had for a long time.
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Post by OgreBattle »

What are the main issues important to French voters, in guessing immigration and maybe the Russian invasion?
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Post by Orca »

On a totally different matter, Games Workshop recently got a letter from PETA asking them to stop depicting fur on their models, this apparently being unacceptable in 2017.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2017/01/ ... mdark.html
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Post by erik »

Orca wrote:On a totally different matter, Games Workshop recently got a letter from PETA asking them to stop depicting fur on their models, this apparently being unacceptable in 2017.

http://www.belloflostsouls.net/2017/01/ ... mdark.html
I saw that a day or two ago and laughed.

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Post by Eikre »

What if instead of wolf-skins, the Space Wolves wore the tanned hides of other human beings? Would that be more or less acceptable, I wonder?
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Post by Orca »

I'm pretty sure GW does have a bunch of minis with implied severed human bits and human skin on them. Either PETA doesn't know, doesn't care or just sees them as some other crazy pressure groups problem.
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