Occupy movement - I'm in the 100%

[zzGypsy]

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beg to differ with you there. my husband closed his general contracting company in SoCal because he could no longer compete with the companies that were hiring illegal workers as long as he hired legal ones. he started working as a project manager / superintendent for a couple of large companies, and he had to learn spanish to speak to the workers that the subcontractors were supplying. he spent 35 years as a general contractor - and over the last 10 or 12 years he saw the work force change from mostly english-speaking legal workers to mostly spanish-speaking illegal workers.

feel free to tell the legal (hispanic and not) construction workers in SoCal that their jobs haven't been stollen... *some*body is doing the work, it's just not them.

and before anyone gets the idea it's a race thing with me, I'm hispanic. it's a legal worker vs. illegal worker thing with me.

 

[EmtheFishLady]

They're taking the jobs nobody else wants. I used to run a tree service in Florida...we couldn't find any help. The only ones who would take the job were illegals. Do I think they need to be legal? Yes. But we also need to make the process easier too. But then, what do I know? I'm from the South after-all.

 

[zzGypsy]

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I'm truly sorry you felt the need to leave California. As for me, there is only one thing powerful enough to persuade me to leave, and it starts with a "V".

no need to feel sorry for me, I'm much better now.

don't know what your "v" word is, but that's ok, because I'm out. and that makes me both calm and happy.

nice to live where I can breathe, metaphorically speaking.

 

[BrattishTaz]

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No, why don't you tell us? I am quite curious to know. I was not aware the everyone from the south was a collective "way".

clearly you don't live in CA or you'd KNOW...

oh, sorry, did you miss the fact that I was mocking that attitude? maybe I didn't have enough of these

in the original post

there are lots of reasons I'm FROM california, not IN california. that'd be one of them.

I guess I did miss the mockery, if that was your intent. I'm thinking most others will too. The smilies did not make it clear.

 

[zzGypsy]

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the guys I see up in trees here are not from latin america, and I'm gonna guess they're probably not illegal... so maybe it's a regional attitude about the work, or the wage for the work. here, local legal folks are doing the work you couldn't find workers for. I'm in the midwest. maybe florida is different. I know SoCal is.

 

[EmtheFishLady]

Quote:
the guys I see up in trees here are not from latin america, and I'm gonna guess they're probably not illegal... so maybe it's a regional attitude about the work, or the wage for the work. here, local legal folks are doing the work you couldn't find workers for. I'm in the midwest. maybe florida is different. I know SoCal is.

It wasn't the wages, we paid much more than most of the services around there. It's hot, dirty work. We had the same problem finding men to pick the oranges too. You cannot tell me they're stealing jobs. They're simply taking the ones nobody else wants.


Actually, lets assume it WAS a wage issue...it's STILL a job that NO ONE ELSE WANTED. They didn't "Steal" it from anyone. I didn't fire a white guy and hire an illegal. I've never met anyone that actually could tell me it happened to them.

Maybe things are different out there in the midwest where folks is civilized.

 

[zzGypsy]

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Sounds like a cop-out for "he couldn't sell jobs/find work", which really means, "the manufactured recession screwed him over."

no, that'd be incorrect. this was before there was a recession, manufactured or otherwise. which makes the point all the more relevant.
if you knew anything about the construction biz or the construction job market in SoCal, perhaps you wouldn't be quite so glib with the "cop-out" suggestion. really, people don't build a business for 25 years and then throw it away because they suddenly forget how to do what got them there in the first place. he wouldn't hire illegal workers. he paid a fair wage, his taxes and his tax obligations for his *legal* workers. you can't compete successfully that way in a market where the guys who underbid you by 50% can do so because they're hiring illegals, paying half the wages and none of the associated taxes. he knows the guys running the companies that outbid him. they freely admit that's what they're doing. they do it so *they* won't go out of business, and they are willing to break the law to do it.

and, as a general rule, men who were special forces in viet nam aren't all that big on "copping-out" anyway.

oh, and by the way, the mid-west IS different than SoCal. in lots of ways. if that's what you were refering to... not really sure what you meant there.

 

[hcppam]

Most are being used by George Soros and his organizations plus the unions, anarchists, marxist. It's going to get real ugly.

 

[zzGypsy]

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don't know that we're more civilized, although my observation is that folks here are considerably more polite than in SoCal.

I wasn't speaking about your particular situation, I was speaking about what ours was in SoCal, where the illegals are working and the legals within the same job market aren't. my comment on your situation was in part that it may be a regional attitude about that particular kind of work. doesn't seem to be the case here, for the same kind of work. I don't know what the local tree-trimming wages are relative to other hot dirty jobs, just that it does not appear to be illegals doing it, so whatever they're paying, it seems to be enough to get legal workers in this area interested. my guess is that it's not a great paying job, that's why I think it may be regional attitude.

 

[zzGypsy]

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oh gosh, it's clear there's no communication to be had here. if you can't tell the difference between someone's personal experience and rhetoric, then really, I'm all done.