Back in the late 90's or early 2000's I was watching a Nashville, TN news station. They were doing a story on the labor shortage in the area at that time, and it mentioned that a restaurant was paying a college student $10 an hour to wash dishes. Now that isn't much money today but at that time it was a really good hourly wage for unskilled labor. The point is that the restaurant was willing to pay the wage necessary to get an American citizen to do that necessary job. Later in time as the number of illegals migrating to the area for jobs, an illegal got the job as far less than $10 an hour.
I was a real estate agent in the late 80's and when I went into the new housing developments all the crews building the houses were American citizens. A few years later the only American citizens on these construction sites were the supervisors, skilled labor, ie. plumbers, electricians and brick layers. All the rest were illegals. Why, because they were willing to work for less money than an American citizen.
I had my roof on my house in Tennessee replaced in 2017. The company I hired sent an American citizen roofer to do the work. He told me that he previously had his own roofing company but had to close it down because his competition used illegals and under bid him all the time. He was friends with this company's owner who hired him so he could have a paying job. Most of the other employees were illegals.
I had a concrete slab poured for a work shop. I took bids from companies for the work and contracted with a company that only had American citizens in it's employ. The owner was shocked that he got the contract because he was usually underbid by his competition as they used all illegals. I think the other companies that bid on the contract didn't really want it due to the small size of the job and intentionally over bid.
It's pretty sad and quite defining of some people's values and integrity that will put an American citizen out of work so they can take advantage of an illegal because they will work for less money.
|