http://tucsoncitizen.com/view-from-baja-arizona/2010/07/11/who-is-at-fault-for-illegal-immigration/

Create fair labor standards in this country and maybe we wouldn’t need so many foreign workers.

A key reform that touches on the immigration issue, but reaches way beyond it, is to provide labor rights protection to farm workers and all sort of other work environments where undocumented workers are now exploited.

One of the first things I would do to change the illegal immigration problem is to not only crack down on businesses that hire undocumented workers, I’d also crack down on their wage and employment tactics. No more “labor contractors”. And if the workers wanted to unionize, protect their rights to do so. An obstacle to that approach is Republicans are genereally as anti-union as they are anti-immigrant.

My guess is a lot of immigration raids in certain sectors are actually triggered by the employer dropping the dime on their illegal works because the workers started complaining about 12 hour shifts, unsafe working conditions, and the failure to pay for overtime. With an endless supply of undocumented workers to fill the jobs of the deported troublemakers, the wage slavery continues.

Many of the industries employing undocumented aliens have exemptions from minimum wage laws. Those exemptions must be eliminated. Then maybe a lot more citizens will take these jobs.

The “crew chief” business needs to be busted up. The agricultural sector has fought unionization because they don’t want the higher costs that union contracts would create.

But is it just the higher costs for labor that is the problem, or the pass through of the higher costs to the ultimate consumer…you and I.

Because we want everything as cheap as possible, our demand for cheapness flows backwards through the system to fuel the need for undocumented workers who can be exploited. That flow back occurs not only in agriculture, but in construction, the hospitality industry, and into our yards and homes.