Tamar Jacoby dissed, discredited

Posted Sun, Jul 17, 2005 at 3:45 pm
Tamar Jacoby has almost become a caricature of the pro-illegal immigration, pro-cheap labor cheerleader so I hesitate to post this lest I be accused of piling on. But, since she's on the other side I don't think we can pile on enough.

Last week the L.A. Times printed yet another cheap labor editorial from her entitled "A Law That Means Business" (link). Today they've printed a letter from a citizen that they've entitled "Corporate greed fuels illegal immigration" (link):
[She] claims that the meatpacking industry in the Midwest would have collapsed without an influx of illegal alien workers.

Meat processing was a well-paid unionized craft until the 1980s, when big corporations were allowed to bust the unions and fill their plants with illegal immigrants. Wages in the industry fell by roughly 50% in real dollars during the 1980s.

Today, a meatpacker makes roughly $10 an hour, which is the same wage paid in 1980! Have you ever heard of an industry that had to lower wages because of a bona-fide shortage of workers?

Americans will do any job that pays a living wage.

The problem isn't workers, but the greed of big business and their enablers in Congress and the White House.
Previously: Tamar Jacoby on immigration "reform".
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Comments

JM (not verified)

Thu, 08/18/2005 - 12:10

Mechanization- replacing low-skill labor with capital- is the very definition of economic development. Its also why U.S. agriculture increasingly can't compete with the head start farmers have in mechanizing in non-invaded parts of the world.

Zhang Fei (not verified)

Mon, 07/18/2005 - 02:29

I think the competitiveness of domestic meat products would have collapsed if not for illegals. Home construction needs to be done domestically. Meat can be imported from abroad. Foreign agricultural products are making serious inroads into the domestic market. Unionized meatpackers making $20 per hour would have been phased out one way or another.

John S Bolton (not verified)

Sun, 07/17/2005 - 17:53

Exactly, declining wages, such as in the more extreme case of construction in many areas, indicate a serious labor surplus. Why do they have to lie about these obvious truths, unless it is because there are no reasonable arguments for increasing the level of aggression in society, through mass immigration of the unproductive, welfare grabbing, illiterate criminals from south of the border?