In Peter Wilby's "The Right to Sell Labor", he discusses the rise in migrant workers who come to America in search of better working conditions, and a better life in general. By allowing immigrants from third-world countries into the United States, we instantly raise their life expectancy significantly, and have a chance for a much more successful future. It is American employers who seek cheap, pliable labor, that take advantage of these migrant workers and pay them significantly smaller wages and in much worse conditions, because they know it is still better to them than their home country would treat them. This creates a much larger competition for jobs between migrants and your average citizen, because the employer can get away with paying much less money to a migrant, who the vast majority of the time is not even paying any taxes. Unfortunately we have reached a point where immigration is nearly impossible to stop and restrict. With such a constant flow of immigrants across state borders, it becomes difficult to regulate and keep track of. Then after these undocumented workers arrive, they are not likely to contact any authorities about their below minimum wage salary, and so the employer gets away with paying them near nothing, and so the job market is extremely affected. Nearly all politicians agree that what we want is regulated immigration, and the best place for this to begin is in the workplace. Migrants would not be nearly as desired by employers if they were to demand minimum wage and proper working conditions.
After reading this article, I found a lot of similarities in my own way of thinking, and the authors. As he states, "Most proposals for controlling immigration are based on keeping out the riff-raff, but exempting those with valuable skills in, say, medicine", I realized just how unrealistic this is. We can't expect to take only the talented and intelligent people from other countries, leaving these countries without any real educated professionals, and sending the "dumb" people back. Unfortunately, it is by doing things like this that has gotten America to be a leading power, but constantly assisting other countries rather than our own. People look to us for everything because we treat them like they are below us, and so they start to believe that themselves. I also find it to be disgusting how employers treat this migrant workers here in America. The fact that some people don't even have the decency to pay them minimum wage is astounding, and honestly so horrible. I completely agree with the author in his statement that, "the best place for regulation is in the workplace".
Works Cited
Wilby, P. "The Right to Sell Labor". New Statesman. November 15th, 2007.
http://www.newstatesman.com/200711150019
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