Pete Vincent wrote: > Legal immigrants can't be paid less than > the minimum wage, and both the employee and employer are subject to > tax laws, and of course all the regulations for safe working conditions, > things which illegals can't ever complain about. Obviously, legal > immigrants are on a level playing field with anyone else seeking those > jobs.
Unfortunately, it's not that simple: - The minimum wage doesn't apply for self-employed people. In this segment of work, anyone can be a "one-man company", under-bidding local competitors that are bound to the minimum wage, thereby being bound to lose the competition to the "one-man company"! - Legal immigrants can still work "black", undermining the minimum wage and taking away locals' jobs. - An increased supply of labor (from immigrants) may lower the minimum wage. Then everyone suffers! > Probably the most effective way to curb illegal immigration would be > a complete overhaul and cleanup of the notoriously corrupt and > cruelly exploitive maquilladora(sp) regions inside Mexico, essentially > making them follow US OSHA style regulations. Let the US companies > who want access to these workers operate there, but under the > supervision of a reliable and ethical independent agency(ies), say with > input from the ILO. The USA can make domestic laws in Mexico? In case you missed this, NAFTA is about race to the bottom, not to the top! > Of course that won't affect the personal service industry, which is > probably the most difficult segment of illegal employment to address, > but that may be far from the most populous. That adds to the problems mentioned above. Chris _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] http://fes.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
