Skinning, gutting, and cutting up catfish is not easy or pleasant work.
November 14, 2011 9:22 AM   Subscribe

Why Americans won't do dirty jobs Alabama enacted an immigration law in September that requires police to question people they suspect might be in the U.S. illegally and punish businesses that hire them. The law, known as HB56, is intended to scare off undocumented workers, and in that regard it’s been a success. It’s also driven away legal immigrants who feared being harassed. “Americans lose sight about how we get our pickles in a pickle jar in a grocery story. We forget that this is where it comes from.”

It’s a hard-to-resist syllogism: Dirty jobs are available; Americans won’t fill them; thus, Americans are too soft for dirty jobs. Why else would so many unemployed people turn down the opportunity to work during a recession? Of course, there’s an equally compelling obverse. Why should farmers and plant owners expect people to take a back-breaking seasonal job with low pay and no benefits just because they happen to be offering it? If no one wants an available job—especially in extreme times—maybe the fault doesn’t rest entirely with the people turning it down. Maybe the market is inefficient.
posted by Ruthless Bunny (4 comments total)

This post was deleted for the following reason: Previously, and posts need to not read like personal opinion statements. -- cortex



 
Double.
posted by Horace Rumpole at 9:24 AM on November 14, 2011


Doub...


fuck it someone else will do it
posted by griphus at 9:24 AM on November 14, 2011


Double, and far too much editorializing to boot.
posted by clockzero at 9:26 AM on November 14, 2011


It's an (illegal) immigrant economy that allows us to have inexpensive...everything. Food, motels, home mprovement, etc. At what point do we decide to either pay more, or recognize that cheap labor provides inexpensive products? Is the answer a painful raise in prices, or a guest-worker plan that allows folks from other countries to come into the US to pick crops, skin catfish and do all the hard, dirty and nasty work that we apparently think we're too good to do?
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 9:27 AM on November 14, 2011


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