Lets give a great big round of applause too....

[Cloudbringer]

I think one of the problems here (in LoA's case) is that the people taking away work from him and his crew are ILLEGALLY in the country and not actually entitled to work, but nobody cares or does anything about it so more keep coming and you run into a situation where illegal immigrants (many of whom have no intention of staying but are only here for the money) gets rewarded while citizens who should be able to find work and make a decent living, can't.

On the other hand, if you're doing work at higher rates to fix their mistakes, Pauly, you've got work out of their being here! LOL

[mysticelt]

Originally posted by Cloudbringer: I think one of the problems here (in LoA's case) is that the people taking away work from him and his crew are ILLEGALLY in the country and not actually entitled to work, but nobody cares or does anything about it so more keep coming and you run into a situation where illegal immigrants (many of whom have no intention of staying but are only here for the money) gets rewarded while citizens who should be able to find work and make a decent living, can't. On the other hand, if you're doing work at higher rates to fix their mistakes, Pauly, you've got work out of their being here! LOL

And a couple of calls (annonymous, maybe) to IMmigration and Naturalization wouldn't hurt. We were constantly required to prove that our workers were legal.

[Reeka]

Iknow whenever I call Dell Support it is always an Indian guy named "Micheal" (year right). Of course, I think it is interesting that when you call for Dell Sales you speak to an American. HHmmmmm.................

[johnny]

Originally posted by Reeka: Iknow whenever I call Dell Support it is always an Indian guy named "Micheal" (year right). Of course, I think it is interesting that when you call for Dell Sales you speak to an American. HHmmmmm.................

Indian as in native American, or as in someone from India ?

[Elif Godson]

Sometimes it is hard to figure out whether your employees are legal or not, heck we have had several slide under that were using the same social security number. It all boils down to communication, something that is almost unheard of now a days, when office A of Corporation X finds out that employee a,c and g are the same they should contact offices A-Z and let them know but does it happen, NO. Richard Marks aka Duane Portige aka Juan Gonazalez goes away scott free collecting not only cash from the job but usually welfare also fo rhis 3 sons and 3 daughters who ar ein actuality his 2 brothers his wife, mother and grand mother. I have seen some shady stuff and I can but only laugh when they cry foul once they get discovered. Our system here is so easy to exploit and there is no real enforcement to it unless you are a native. Try getting foodstamps when you make 24 k a year and supporting a family of 3 when you own a house and have a car that is less then 5 years old !!! There are all kinds of incidents like what LoA is going through happening, and people just realize or care about it which is a shame. on a different note but along the same lines, last week there was a hispanic lawn crew that I see along the same stretch of road once a week, there is one caucasian who is usually the driver/supervisor, well these guy's seem to think that a car traveling a 50+ mph will be able to stop or avoid them when they walk out into traffic, so so far this year I have seen 3 fatilities and have even had a attempted conversations with some of them, cept the probelm is they do not speak english and I barely know any spanish so there in lies one of the major roots of the problem !! I feel your pain LoA my father was a general contractor for 40+ years he did everything form residential to industrial conmstruction. Always had a problem with the "help" and most times would fire several members of his various crews.

[Nanobyte]

Well, I guess when the government has a national debt in the billions, they wouldn't hesitate to get the most work done at the least cost. I do say that looking ahead in time, my future doesn't look all that promising. Our economy is being overtaken by internationals, and now the SS program may collapse after the baby boomer era reaches their prime. Hope you guys had fun growing up in the 60s in 70s [img]tongue.gif[/img]

[Leonis]

LoA, that really sucks, sorry man. I guess the Mexicans are trying to get out of their own $h!tty situation... Bloody governments; I have no faith in any of those malicious bastards.

I recently paid a carpenter/joiner $600 and a tiler $500 for a day's work each (+ $materials). They were among the higher quotes I got, but they worked very hard and very well all day until their jobs were done - and their work was immpecable. I wouldn't have wanted anything less. My point being, is there not still a section of the community who still value quality products and workmanship? I would never trust the building of my home to people who were so obviously cutting corners (in tools/materials or wages).

Obviously some are realising it after the fact, (hence the fixing up) but where are the honest and smart customers?

[Lord of Alcohol]

Well I have a new job. Not working for myself anymore, I am a superintendent for a construction firm. Looks like I will be in charge of all the framing crews for a 60,000 square foot condo project. I better brush up on my spanish Pay is less but I get benefits+generous vehicle allowance that pretty much makes my truck payment. Independence is gone oh well

[Timber Loftis]

Originally posted by Lord of Alcohol: Well I have a new job. Not working for myself anymore, I am a superintendent for a construction firm. Looks like I will be in charge of all the framing crews for a 60,000 square foot condo project. I better brush up on my spanish Pay is less but I get benefits+generous vehicle allowance that pretty much makes my truck payment. Independence is gone oh well

Sorry to hear your woes LoA. Erm... I mean Lo siento por las problemas de tuyo.

One problem with free trade is that it ignores externalities. Production costs more in wealthy nations because wealthy nations demand higher quality from the company -- not just in products, but in externality concerns -- 2 common ones are environmental protection and worker's wages. In most any industry, knocking down the trade wall between a rich/poor country pair, such as the US/Mexico only leads to increased poverty in the rich nation. On paper, it may all look good, because the fat cats on top are making more money and the companies like Ford get richer. On the laborer level, however, the company is forced to trade for cheap labor south of the border or lose out to Mexican companies -- cheap labor is a competitive advantage they have, as is the advantage of lower environmental protection regulations to comply with.

In short, it creates a race to the bottom.

This is why free trade will only kill rich naitons until some internation means of addressing externalities, such as the environment and labor, is created. The WTO is a useless tool of destruction without a WEO and a WLO.

All of which is exacerbated by illegal immigration. Were I you, I would spend a few hours calling up and ratting out every company that ever used illegal immigrants. I'd even do it to the company you're working for now -- so long as you can remain annonymous.

[ 08-22-2003, 02:40 PM: Message edited by: Timber Loftis ]

[johnny]

Originally posted by Lord of Alcohol: Well I have a new job. Not working for myself anymore, I am a superintendent for a construction firm. Looks like I will be in charge of all the framing crews for a 60,000 square foot condo project. I better brush up on my spanish Pay is less but I get benefits+generous vehicle allowance that pretty much makes my truck payment. Independence is gone oh well

Hope things work out for you dude, it still sucks you can't be your own boss anymore though, but keep the faith.

Don't bother with the Spanish though, all you need to know is: Ola hombre, go fetch me a cold cerveza dammit.