In a free society, consumers vote on marketplace options with their earnings. And they tend to patronize businesses that support their values. Accordingly, the bulk of corporate America generally tends to want the same thing as everyday Americans: peace, stability, prosperity.
But corporations exist to make money and when tempted by easy profits, their interests may diverge from those of society as a whole. One place where this happens is on the issue of migrant labor.
Labor is usually the biggest cost to any company. If you cut labor costs, you increase profits, making both stockholders and creditors happy. So, American companies love anyone who is willing to perform competent work for entry-level wages. The easiest way to recruit low-cost workers is through immigration programs.
The primary interest of foreign workers is getting to, and remaining in, the United States. If an Indian or Chinese tech worker can get an H-1B visa, he/she has a pathway to a green card and U.S. citizenship. Substandard wages are a small price to pay for that opportunity, so most foreign workers will gladly accept jobs at the low end of the pay-scale. It’s simply the price of admission to the U.S.
This is a dangerous mix. It leaves American workers sandwiched between two powerful lobbies, both driven by the desire for a return on their investments: U.S. companies addicted to cheap foreign labor and foreign workers eager to access the largest, most stable economy in the world.
So, who’s watching out for the American’s who want to make our nation great by driving its economy?
The working class thought its champion was President Donald J. Trump. And it had reason to believe the president. As the Washington Examiner put it, Mr. Trump tapped “into the idea of the forgotten man: working-class Americans who felt ignored by their political leaders and left behind by globalism.” And he backed his words up with actions: renegotiating bad trade deals, discouraging companies from shipping jobs overseas and firing up the American economy.
But is Mr. Trump still the one billionaire industrialist who’s holds the interests of those who work for a living firmly in mind? Maybe not. In his 2019 State of the Union address, he called for the admission of legal immigrants to the United States “in the largest numbers ever.” And during his speech to the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington, D.C., he stated, “We need an immigration policy that’s going to be great for our corporations.” He also expressed his view that “we need workers to come in.”
Only time will tell if the president who convinced American workers that he could make their country a great industrial power again has abandoned them and jumped on the globalist band wagon. But one thing is certain, if he begins to champion foreign workers over the Americans, Mr. Trump will lose all credibility with the voters who put him in office.
5 Comments
It seems to be quite simple to me. If President Trump refuses to keep his promises, he will not be re-elected. His followers will desert him. Then, of course, the socialists will prevail, the country will go down kicking and screaming, but it will be the end of the U.S. as we know it.
As someone who has worked in the USA on an H1B visa, I have to correct you on your statement “Substandard wages are a small price to pay for that opportunity, so most foreign workers will gladly accept jobs at the low end of the pay-scale.”
Before a sponsoring company can apply for an H1b visa they have to submit a ‘Prevailing Wage Request’ with the Department of Labor, who then decide what the minimum wage is for the H1b job. The petitioning company must, by law, pay the H1b employee a salary no smaller than the prevailing wage decided by the Department of Labor. As H1b jobs are mostly IT related , the minimum wage is usually quite high and definitely not at the low end of the pay-scale.
You are avoiding the whole point. American workers are being replaced by cheaper H1B workers. It happened at Disney and Southern California Edison and numerous other companies all over this country. They had to train their replacements if they wanted a severance package. It is ALL about cheaper salaries and benefits.
He needs to say he will veto the “Fairness For High Skilled Immigrants Act”. It’s nothing but a complete sellout to India and will turn the rest of our tech industry over to them, which they already control to a great degree now. It’s beyond dispute that the majority of American-born graduates in one of the four STEM fields are not working in the field they have a degree in.
The only fairness shown is for citizens of foreign countries and corporate oligarchs, who are just the modern day equivalents of the late 19th and early 20th century robber barons who lobbied for a never ending supply of new labor working for peanuts. When are millennials and minorities going to wake up and take off their blinders and realize that no one is being hurt worse than them? Declining wages, increasing competition for jobs, soaring housing prices in urban areas, around the clock traffic congestion, all is made worse by more immigration.
I voted for Trump, even though it didn’t do a damned bit of good in a deep blue state. He’s packed his White House with Open Borders lunatics and Cheap Labor lobbyists. I no longer believe anything he says about “America First,” border security, or immigration or labor law enforcement.