Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis is a union gal from California, and when she was appointed Labor Secretary, it was clear whose interests she would represent in Washington. Now she has taken it a step further. Who is it that the Secretary of Labor wants to protect?
American worker jobs?
Think again. No, Hilda Solis is bound and determined to protect the rights of workers-who are in this country illegally.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/08/31/labor-department-agreements-protect-illegal-workers/
Go figure.
Meanwhile back in California, the state senate in Sacramento has voted (along strict party lines) in favor of AB 131 that would make tax-payer funds available to illegal alien college kids for tuition assistance or scholarships. It now goes back to the Assembly and then on to Governor Brown's desk for signature. Thus, if you are an American citizen or legal resident alien in California saving money to put your own kid in a California college-you would now pay for financial assistance to illegal alien kids to go to college.
Go figure.
Whose interests do you think the Secretary of Labor is going to protect? The Secretary of Commerce is not going to protect the interests of the employees of employers. That is the Secretary of Labor's job!
ReplyDeleteThere has long been a dispute within the labor movement whether American workers are better protected by demanding that immigrant populations (sometimes legal as well as illegal) be deported and excluded, or by organizing any who manage to get here and obtain jobs.
The fact is, if immigrants who are working do not receive the protection of labor laws, they can be more easily victimized by the sleazy, lying, exploitive employers who bring them here and hire them. Such employers have been known to call the immigration authorities on workers who
a) listen to union organizers, or,
b) are due to be paid soon,
the latter resulting in the employer getting to keep all the money owed to the deported workers.
Of course the Secretary of Labor is making sure that any worker in this country received the full protection of the wage and hour laws, etc., for as long as they ARE working. That is for the benefit of ALL workers, citizens and legal immigrants as well as illegal immigrants.
Only a part-time English professor in an ivory tower at UCI, with an ideological ax to grind, would miss the obvious implications. You really are naive about what it is like to work outside of government service Gary.
I thought the secretary of Labor was supposed to make sure things were running legally without being an advocate for one side 100% of the time. Silly me.
ReplyDeleteI hope they don't establish a dept of Illegal aliens.
Establishing a new cabinet position requires approval of both houses of congress. If you think either the House or the Senate is going to provide a majority to do so, you may have something to worry about.
ReplyDeleteThe secretary of labor's job is to enforce laws that protect labor. It is not her job to enforce all the other laws on the books. She can't enforce a law that doesn't exist. "The other side" has plenty of laws to protect their investments, and has had plenty of opportunity to limit the protections available to their employees.
To the extent that someone who entered the country illegally managed to get hired somewhere, their employer owes them full pay for hours worked, etc. They may get deported with their money, but as long as they are working, their employer owes them the same consideration as any other employee.
When a country, a sovereign nation, is unable or unwilling to protect its borders or decide who should or should not have the rights of citizenship, that country has lost its moorings and is in decline.
ReplyDeleteThat it values citizenship so lightly that it is willing to give it away or stolen is not lost on all those who would love to come here and get free education, welfare, healthcare, and who knows what else.
Let's distribute the wealth from the evil employers to them while we are at it so the ILLEGALs can exercise their "rights" to IPads, XBoxes, and whatever other amusements they may feel entitled. The geniuses on the Left are more than willing to give them everything in exchange for their VOTES. That way everyone can stay at the trough.
I suppose it will continue unless, or rather until, we see the wide spread of the Maywood, California predicament where they were so far in debt that they finally had to declare bankruptcy. (I suppose they too just didn't spend enough to fix their economic problems.)
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Miggie, your first paragraph may be correct. However, evil employers have ALWAYS been the instigators of new waves of immigration, legal or illegal, popular or unpopular. They always do it for cheap labor.
ReplyDeleteI wrote a reference article on migrant labor once, and learned in the process that up to the 1930s, Texas agriculture had migrant labor coming across the border, seasonally, but not much else. Growers in other states, as far away as Michigan, started asking "can we get in on some of this?" It turns out though, that once in America, Mexicans, like anyone else, hankered for better jobs, and tended to move into anything available, and settle down. So the farmers needed new workers. And so on.
The Mexican laborers I have known personally were not buying ipads, they were sending money home to buy the materials to build their family a nice new home.
But, you neatly sidestep the point that, WHATEVER the immigration status, and however firmly it is enforced, anyone who IS working MUST be protected by the LABOR laws WHILE working here, as much for the benefit of native-born American workers who would otherwise be undermined by the even cheaper labor of workers who are NOT protected.
But you don't believe any worker is entitled to any protection, so I guess that wouldn't matter to you.