“Where Companies Welcome Refugees, the More, the Better” (NYT):
Haimonet Demcasso, the recruiter, explained, in two languages, the broad outlines of the jobs. The poultry-plant work pays roughly $11 to $13 an hour in small towns in Virginia and West Virginia. Labor Solutions would transport the recruits, find apartments for them to share, help fill out paperwork, and advance them the money to cover their travel, the first month’s rent, the security deposit, heavy work boots and home essentials. They could pay it back out of their paychecks with no interest at a rate of $60 a week.
They are paid the same as other plant workers, but they are employees of Labor Solutions for up to a year, until they’ve repaid their loans.
The tone of the article is a little closer to neutral than the typical NYT piece celebrating immigration, but basically it seems positive. Would it then be fair to say that the NYT is celebrating indentured servitude?
Related:
- U.S. labor force participation rate (started falling with the welfare expansion of 2009 and hasn’t risen since; see Book Review: The Redistribution Recession)
- Atlantic article on the millions of “prime age” American men who don’t work
Encouraging, then celebrating, indentured servitude. Their opinion clearly is that the market clearing wage is too high for these jobs, requiring importing unskilled people to increase labor supply, resulting in lower wages. Indentured servitude is a feature here, not a bug.
Did the article report on how jobs for refugees are subsidized by govt, which is why they don’t hire the locals in the first place?
Since when is “reporting on” something “celebrating?” Or perhaps I missed the celebration.
@paddy – what exactly are you talking about?
BillS : they get “retraining” dollars, while the workers get subsidies directly in housing and government benefits as well, for at least the 1st year in the USA. In some cases, refugees also get CASH: https://www.dshs.wa.gov/esa/community-services-offices/refugee-cash-assistance
Chobani has been sucking up retraining dollars – about $5700 per person – over 2 years (to be generous) that means an additional $1.25 to $1.50 per hour discount to Chobani per full-time worker, irrespective of any other grants/exemptions/tax dollars they may get. https://stateimpact.npr.org/idaho/2012/08/08/chobani-receives-bulk-of-new-worker-training-grant-money/
Refugees in the USA are immediately eligible on the same basis as US citizens, for all aid/welfare/assistance programs, as well, from the first day of being in the USA.
For those in the foreign land, it’s all about opportunity, so why not? (and IMHO, it is unethical to blame them.) For those residing in the US, a good quote from Chris Arnande (please google) is: they broke the working class and tried to import another one.
I do have a (-/mis)fortune of having an immigrant housekeeper, and she does not even realize I understand her language. So… do we want to screw them over for about $1.50 an hour (plus an attitude), and is that the cost of the opportunity of the slave labor? Liberals are the people who would only understand an AR-15 nozzle pushing against their belly. Nothing else, no respect for the others, and no compassion for the weak.
@Paddy – I guess you mean “some jobs for refugees” certainly not all.
You mentioned “Chobani has been sucking up retraining dollars” well, the NPR article you shared is almost 6 years old and specifically mentions a program to train managers for the Twin Falls, ID plant that they were building at the time. That plant is now the largest yogurt manufacturing factory in the world, employs thousands (including a good number, but not a majority of refugees) and has been a boon to the local economy (especially dairy farmers). Do you know if Chobani has received any training grants in recent years?
And it is true that many refugees are eligible for federal and state benefits, (some are the same that other Americans can apply for, some are specifically for recently resettled refugees) and as they do better and earn more (as many do) they will no longer receive assistance. The point of these grants is to help people who have fled persecution get a new start with their lives. If you don’t support that, fine, but many people find it quite reasonable, if not noble.
Did you look at the amounts of the subsidies offered on that Washington State webpage you shared? Do you know what the word paltry means?