a day with/out immigrants

[rkt]

so, yes, i came into work today. i forgot to calculate the extra time for the subway due to fewer workers and the anxiety was acting up so i had to wait a few trains for one that wouldn't transmorgify me into a sardine. i had made the mistake of re-remembering that the 2 train will only get me to work a little bit later, but will allow my lazy ass to sit and not be sat upon during the ride up. so this little lateness was a little more lateness. i wasn't the most late.

i then went and purchased breakfast from the (immigrant-run) deli across the street.

also, because of the anxieties, i don't know if i could have handled meandering around in crowds. at least the day is nice for those who are out there.

my mother works for cargill meat processing in wisconsin. they simply shut the plant down for the day.

also, for anyone who wants to irradicate illegal immigration, the cure is simple: legalize it.

Comments

[kaygigi.livejournal.com]

Speaking of meat processing...
Theres an article on CNN that says something along the lines of "because of illegal immigrants working in processing plants, the wages have gone down, in real dollars, from $19 in 1980 to about $9 now".
Uhhh, did CNN fail macroeconomics? The wages haven't gone down because the immigrants are willing to work for less; the unions got busted, the wages started falling, the workers had no recourse, most white and non-illegal Hispanic workers were laid off in favor of (cheaper, non-union, non-educated) illegal immigrants. Did the illegals "take" the jobs away from the US-born workers? No. The fucking meat processors took the jobs away and gave them to workers they knew they could easily exploit. If the employers were so concerned about US born workers, they wouldn't have union busted to begin with. If the US born workers aren't willing to work for slave labor, so thinks big business, then we won't hire them; we'll instead hire workers who are a little more desparate and a little less caring about social position because their status is tenuous anyway. It's the same damn thinking that moves factories abroad, de-skills professional labor, and votes Republican.
Beyond removing the racist and antiquated barriers towards naturalization, we must provide living wages, the right to organize labor, and the elimination of "right to work" laws that posit workers as having very little authority or autonamy over their work....

It's times like these that the Marxist within becomes the Marxist without. I feel like I did my part in my lecture and supporting the kids out at QC. I feel the anxiety of the crowd, though. I think I'm staying home tonight.

As the postie saying goes, No Body is Illegal.

[rkt.livejournal.com]

did the mta strike teach you NOTHING? it is never the employer's fault.

"undocumented" is much nicer than "illegal".