Immigrant Employee Impact on Native - Essay Example

Bandar Alsubaie Jeanne Popowits June 30, Engl 102 Immigrant Employee Impact on Native A hard working American woman went to an interview hoping that she would be accepted to work in the company and support her two children, but she got rejected because a Mexican person accepted a lower salary than her. This situation happens to some American workers and also legal immigrants who come from around the world to the United States looking for a better education and a better life. They are looking for good jobs that will support them in their life. Most immigrants do not know that they affect the labor force by coming to the United States or perhaps they are not concerned about it, because immigrants think that they are not going to be affected. However, everyone who is in the labor force is going to be affected by any change to the work environment. Therefore, immigrant workers should be treated as equal member of the labor force, and we should acknowledge immigrant workers in the work environment. The rise and fall of the economy causes a lot of finger pointing between native workers accusing immigrant workers. Even though natives blame immigrants for losing their jobs and salary, they still help the economy. According to Marron the total gain from immigration is 0.28% of the GDP or approximately $37 billion per year (Marron et al 3). Furthermore, the immigrants’ affect could go both ways, either good or bad, so it depends on the way we take the situation. We could watch and not do anything or we could help the labor force in activities such as job searches and work support. According to the editor, Viqi Wagner, in the introduction to her book Labor Unions for the second chapter, in 2000 the population of immigrants in the United States was estimated to be seven million. Since the immigrant population has been rising by a half-million each year, if we calculate the number for 2010, it would be estimated 12 million immigrants (59). Taking into consideration the population of United States alone, which is 309 million, according to the United States pop clock website (US & World Population Clock). And also Donald Marron, one the White House website shows that in 2006 15% of the labor force in United States was foreign-born workers, and now this constitutes half of the growth in the labor force (Marron 1). So all of kinds of people are immigrating to the United States, and we cannot ask them to go home so easily. Equal treatment in the labor force should be established between workers no matter what their race and where they are from. Just by watching TV news, we know some of the immigrant force gets abused. The immigrant workers get pushed around and given heavy lifting work because bosses of some companies know that foreign workers have no knowledge of the United States’ work policy. Furthermore, as these workers are treated in this way they also get the lowest salaries. For example, Delgado Wise on Capitalist Restructuring journal shows the difference between the hourly wage for jobs in Mexico and in the United States: the average rate was in Mexico was $2.57 per hour and in America the employee rate was $16.45 per hour. However, in the case of undocumented immigrants, the hourly wage was $5. Wise explains that undocumented immigrants have low income, compared to others, because they are not educated (Delgado Wise et al 1368). We do not expect uneducated immigrants to learn everything about American culture at the moment their foot touches the United States. However, the foreign worker should not accept ignorance as an excuse for their failures in the work force. They should educate themselves. Native workers should not blame immigrants for their loss of jobs because immigrants also have their share of unemployment. For example, Sara Murray in “Work Gets Scarce For Immigrants” says that 11.8% of immigrant workers and 10.3% of American were unemployed in January of 2007 (Sara Murray et al). Since every one suffers from this problem, we need to stop blaming each other and start working to find a solution. Immigration causes a huge conflict in the labor force. If we try to see the difference between the native and immigrant workers, we must note that immigrants get the most impact because they cause it. Sara Murray in “Wall Street Journal” quoted Juan Ralda, a 23-year-old Guatemalan immigrant as saying, “I haven’t had steady work for a year.” When he first arrived four years ago, he was supporting his family by sending $300 a month to Guatemalan, but the roles are now reversed, “Now I barely earn enough money to eat and pay the rent,” Mr. Ralda says. In fact, even though he is unemployed, he is not thinking of returning home because his country has no job opportunities (Sara Murray et al). In another example, Marc Lacey in the New York Times shows that Mexican mother Maria and her family is trying to collect money to support her daughter, Candelaria, who is living in North Carolina. She recently had a child and became unemployed, and Candelaria started receiving money from her family. As her mother said, “when she’s working she sends money to us, but now, because there’s no work, we send money to her” (Marc Lacey et al). These examples show common scenarios that happen to immigrant workers. Immigrant worker not only are losing their job but also they are effecting their country of origin. For example, Mexico may lose 735,000 jobs and the economy would fall to 7.5% (Marc Lacey et al). So we need to control and help one another if we do not want to decrees the economy of our neighbor country. Immigrant workers, in a way, could help the economy of the United States. The skilled American craftsmen and contractors are building homes at lower cost because the unskilled foreign-born construction laborers, so American people income and productivity would rise. (Marron et al 2) since 1990 the average wage of native increase between 0.7% and 1.8% and also 90% of American workers gain money from immigration. And the annual wage surplus because of the immigration is between $30 billion and $80 billion (Marron, Donald 2). As Marron compares the wage between Mexican born workers who moved to the United States to work and native Mexican worker it would be sixe to one to two to one to Mexican worker who work in the United States (Marron et al 3). One of the immigrants’ major help to the United States economy is remittance. Some think that remittance senders are not good for the country because they are sending the money out of the country. But when I studied in economics class with professor Thomas, who teaches the economic analysis and the theory of the United States economy, he taught that by getting loans from the bank or depositing money to the bank you create more money. For example, when I deposit $500 in the bank, the bank will loan the money to another person and the other person will do the same for me. Furthermore, the money I put in the bank is only on paper and the bank invests it. However, when I want my money, I can get it. If you talk the same theory and apply it in the world, it is the same. So on, as we know that the biggest place where immigrants go is the United States, and also the United States holds the world’s largest standing remittances; for instance, in 1995 they send $48,000 million to Mexico, and it increased to $199,000 million in 2006. (Delgado Wise et al 1360). If we do remittances, we create more money in the world economy. By preventing poverty and enterprise is undeveloped countries, the money is going to benefit the United States one way or another. Most native born believe that immigrant workers are the reason for the loss of jobs and the decline of the economy. In 2009, undocumented workers held between 7 million to 8 million jobs and the workers age for the unemployed rate was 25 percent or over; in November 2009, 14.4 percent of the workers were without high school diplomas (Stern 2861). The issues of unemployment are affecting the young population of America and it is causing a lot of unfair wages for beginning workers. However, immigrant workers, legal and illegal, could be used as a development tool for the United States economy. The economy of the United States could rise as the immigration workers become skilled workers. However, we should open more jobs and opportunity for the new generation and for the new outside workers. As Mr. Stern quoted from the president of the Migration Policy Institute, Demetrios Papadimitriou, ”unless we make a bit of economic progress – and by that I mean jobs being created- it becomes very difficult to foresee circumstances where legislation could pass next year” (Stern 2861). When Obama met with lawmakers in June 2009, and he said that the legislation would begin moving in the fall of 2009. However, nothing happened -- no changing of the law, no job opportunities, and no help in the health care industry. (Stern 2860). Police must change and help the immigrant workers. Workers must also work together so they can solve the global issue of job lose and prevent the economy from declining. Center for Labor Renewal (CLR) Working Group on immigration provides ways to solve the issue, with both long-term and short-term solutions. The long-term solution is that as long we have open borders to trade, we should have open borders for workers so they can cross; this is intended to raise all wages in the United States. We should have a democracy and freedoms and every worker should be allowed to cross the border, according to CLR (Wagner et al 68). These ideas need a lot of work and acceptance, which I do not think is going to happen; it could reduce the quality of the work environment. However the second solution, which is the short-term solution, is the best way to fix the issue. In the second solution, because some workers are afraid to go back and lose their job, we should give all immigrant workers permission and visas, so they could go home and return to their job. In addition, we must stop wages from declining, stop workers absences, and educate guest workers about the police and work absence (Wagner et al 69). I agree with those solutions because the workers enemies are the companies not the workers themselves. Furthermore, the workers must help each other so the economies of all the countries in the world improve to a better position. Work Cited Betancourt, Antonio, MARC LACEY, and Dominique Jarry-Shore. "Money Starts to Trickle North as Mexicans Help Out Relatives." New York Times 16 Nov. 2009: 1. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 4 June 2010. Delgado Wise, Raul, and Humberto Marquez Covarrubias. "Capitalist Restructuring, Development and Labour Migration: the Mexico-US case." Third World Quarterly 29.7 (2008): 1359-1374. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 2 June 2010. MURRAY, SARA, and MIRIAM JORDAN. "Work Gets Scarce For Immigrants." Wall Street Journal - Eastern Edition 06 Feb. 2010: A4. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. Web. 2 June 2010. Marron, Donald B., and Edward P. Lazear. "Immigration’s Economic Impact." Welcome to the White House. 20 Jan. 2007. Web. 14 June 2010. http://georgewbush-whitehouse.archives.gov/cea/cea_immigration_062007.html . Stern, Seth. “Employing a New Immigration plan.” CQ Weekly Online. December 14, 2009. 2860-2861, http://library.cqpress.com/cqweekly/weeklyreport111-000003265904 . Accessed June 2, 2010. Wagner, Viqi. "2." Labor Unions. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2008. Print Wagner, Viqi, and CLR Working Group on Immigration. "2." Labor Unions. Detroit: Greenhaven, 2008. 62-69. Print. "US & World Population Clock." Census Bureau Home Page. Web. 20 June 2010. http://www.census.gov/population/www/popclockus.html. Read More