July 17, 2007
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Did you Sign?
(You'll have another chance, I have the link posted at the bottom of this blog.)
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My Soapbox of the Day
The recent "debate" over immigration appears to have ended with the defeat of the proposed legislation, but the issue remains among us. I was reading commentary on the CNN website that sums up the situation as I know it. American workers don't want to do the jobs that immigrants do. Period.
Anyone who believes in this day and age that "they" are taking jobs from "us" is simply choosing not to face the truth. "They" make beds in hotels, cook, frame houses, and pick vegetables. And "they" do it for minimum wage. "We" don't want to clean toilets, prefer not to be in hot kitchens (I didn't cook when I worked in a restaurant, I wanted to be a server because I could make a lot more money), want to be electricians or plumbers because that's where the real construction money can be made, and we don't pick vegetables.
When you go to the grocery store for your lettuce, strawberries and chicken ... it's 99% certain that immigrant hands picked it, packed it, and plucked it for you. The effect of immigrant labor on our economy is staggering when you consider that without it lettuce growers would have to charge $10 a head, strawberries might be $20 a pound, and the boneless skinless chicken breast I ate yesterday might have cost more than my cable television.
Well, you can read the CNN commentary here.
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Tucker at Camp
The report from Tucker's first day of camp is in. He missed the target in archery, but he got to ride "Cricket", everyone's favorite horse, and he won first place in sandcastle building. My sister reported that he put the little certificate from the contest straight into his suitcase because "My mom will want to see this." He's right. But the thing that I love most is that he knows I want to see it.
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Sign the peitition:
Lifetime TV is sponsoring a petition on their website in support of legislation that would stop insurance companies who would force a woman undergoing a mastectomy to be treated as an "outpatient". The bill would put the decision in the hands of the patient and her doctor so that she would be able to have a 48 hour recovery in the hospital after this brutal surgery instead of being away with drainage tubes still in place, disoriented from anesthesia and regardless of whether there is anyone at home to assist her with the pain and the emotions that follow.
This bill mirrors the one passed about 11 years ago that stopped insurance companies from forcing women out of the hospital within hours of giving birth. Do you remember that? The mortality rate to both mothers and babies was climbing until the law was passed and they had the option to recover in a hospital if they desired. I gave birth to Tucker just after that law was enacted and because I had family at home, I opted to leave the hospital when he was about 36 hours old. Because of that law, a nurse was sent to my home two days later to check on us. We were fine, but what a comfort to know that if we had needed something, there would have been someone on hand to help.
Please visit the website and sign this petition. Because, by God if someone is going to whack off one or more of my ta-tas I want at least a couple days in the hospital where there are nurses, pain meds, and a little button I can press to call for help.
http://www.lifetimetv.com/breastcancer/petition/signpetition.php
Comments (11)
I just signed the petition.
Many of the jobs that immigrants are doing used to be "summer" jobs or after school jobs for teens. Construction, farm jobs, fast food jobs, many many minimum wage jobs were how lots of young people broke into the workforce. The thing is, there are lots of minimum wage jobs out there, but you're right -- nobody wants to do them. Teens are too "busy" for jobs after school. Parents are too lax to require them to get summer jobs. For some, it's much easier to steal something or sell drugs to make tons more money than they'd make with minimum wage and that's what they're learning in the streets (at least in this neighborhood.) Then there's the single parent population, which is a whole other can of worms. There's also the "American Dream" and how it's perceived by peoples outside this country. The issue is so much bigger than just jobs; it's a whole psychological nightmare.
I'm sort of with Katherine Hepburn on this; until we educate women, pay them for raising children, and give birth control to those who currently can't get it, we're not going to make much progress on ANY front.
As for the petition: when I had my son, I was required to stay in the hospital for five days. I stayed three and then begged to go home; the doc let me on the condition that I would do no housework for a week. That was pretty much as insane as insisting women leave after 24 hours. Nowadays, insurance companies are paying for "elective" caesarians because women don't want to "go through" normal childbirth or want to SCHEDULE their deliveries. We not only put up with this, it's encouraged, and there goes another jump in medical care costs. Nobody seems able to get any sort of balance on this thing. Any woman who faces major surgery should be able to stay in a hospital as long as she needs any kind of medical care. Mastectomies are NOT minor surgery; they're amputations.
Thanks for the link to the petition.
I've already signed that petition. I got the link from a friend a couple of weeks ago. My mom had a double mastectomy a couple of years ago and suffered that exact problem. They sent her home with the tubes still in and she had all kinds of trouble. It took forever to heal properly. So I agree 100% with that one.
I also agree with most of what you say about the immigration problem. Anyone who has ever lived in Texas knows that the economy here would collapse in a heartbeat without the Mexican workers willing to do the crap jobs for cheap. I just wish there was a way to do it legally. And I wish there was a way we could let them come and work, but not stay. Don't get me wrong. Most of the Latinos that I know are hard working family people. I like them, work with them and would have no problem having them for neighbors, but the latino population in this country is growing at an alarming rate. They will soon be the national majority and will be driving policy and legislative decisions. I admit, being part of the current majority, that bothers me.
The only part of the country *I* can vouch for is where I live, and where *I* live, CNN is not totally correct. I do agree that without the migrant farm labor groceries would be impossibly high, and that hispanics often do labor that 'we' don't 'want' to do. BUT. Here, the hispanics are not doing the jobs 'we don't want to do,' they are doing the jobs that used to pay fairly well, and are doing them for MUCH less than the wages that used to be paid. Roofers, carpenters, brickmasonry, and the infamous landscaping jobs are almost exclusively done by hispanic illegals now...(whether they knew how to actually DO it or not at the start, I might add. One will usually speak great english, talk for the 'crew' and be the foreman, and he'll hire all his friends, and in a week when the boss comes by with money are all 'experts' that he hired especially to work at whatever jobs there are, because he says they are, and he's the only one talking. But they DO catch on quickly, and soon they ARE expert, for sure, it's just the process used to gain experience that kills me.) The jobs that 'we' don't want to do are being done here as always, by the blacks and other nationalities of kids that want a free or working paid summer vacation...IE foreign exchange students. That's not a racist sort of remark, it's a break down of exactly what is happening here on our workforce. The hispanics do the manual labor that at one point paid more than many 'clean' jobs such as cashiers and sales people in the stores, (and now do it for much LESS than it used to pay, because they don't have the language knowledge to force the wages back to what it once was, or they don't even know they're being paid much less) and blacks and college kids still are the higher paid end of the scale in jobs such as cooks/chefs, housekeeping (which HERE pays BIG bucks from hotel chains) and waitstaffing, which again makes big bucks, due to the tourist industry. The farming that goes on here isn't done by hispanics much, it's done by the same ones as always for the most part, the farm owners, and black workers who know the farm owners, having worked there for most of thier lives. But our farm economy isn't what it is most places, we grow cancer plants (tobacco) and cotton, and basic veggies for small farmstands, not so much groceries for the masses, and those crops don't usually require largescale migrant workers. I know all this about the construction because my neighbors are in the construction/landscaping business, I see it firsthand when they come by to get stuff for the jobsites or to be paid, and hear about it daily when they screw up because they did not 'really' know how to lay brick, or roof...
I hate it when I think I'm finished...LOL
The highest paid jobs here that are actually available to those without college educations are the very ones I have listed there, skilled laborers such as roofers and construction crews used to make close to double minimum wages here. The housekeeping jobs pay well enough that people in the next county BUS in daily to work them, and have a 'lock' on them. You don't just walk in and get a housekeeping job here. They pay better than any cashier, fast food, salesgirl slot on the beach, too. Cooking in the upper class restaurants pays big too, again more than anyone makes working at the mall.
I can't argue that certified electricians, jobsite supervisers, store managers, ect all make good money, but the hispanics here don't have the languge skills to do those jobs, let alone the education for them...not saying they are uneducated, but they don't have college degrees, and that is what those positions all require when looking for applicants. You can't compare jobs that require educations and degrees to those that do not, and have fair comparisions. The highest paid skilled labor type jobs that do not require degrees here are now being done by hispanics, for less than 'we' used to make doing them, and those are jobs that many of 'us' did do before, before the hispanics came, and agreed to be paid less than 'we' made doing what they do now. Here, at least, that IS fact, in the construction business, and in the other jobs that they do as well.
My complaint with it is not that they do the jobs, but that they have brought the pay scale back to what it was 25 years ago, because they will work for that pay, and the business people would be stupid NOT to take advantage of that. But it is making us as a whole once again lower paid for things that should pay a decent wage...IE do it for minimum wage or I'll go find a Mexican who will. THAT is my problem with it, not the people, not the jobs they do, and not what they 'take' from 'us' as wages, other than the continual downward spiral of wages that is created when 'they' will work for 5 bucks under the table for jobs that 'we' want, but require FICA, insurance, and taxes taken out of.
Tucker won first place in sand castle building! That's very cool and very cool he knows you need to see that certificate!
I have nothing intelligent to say about the immigration legislation.
I know I'm not into hand picking.
Oh, and also, waitstaff here are paid strangely. The restaurants here usually try to make them accept hire as 'contract labor' which gets the restaurant off as far as paying them at all, in other words, they work for tips, exclusively, no FICA comes out, nada, they are not even on the books. The ones that hire as actual employees, have a weird loophole that they use to not pay full minimum wages, usually a waitress gets less than 2 bucks an hour from the house, and the rest they make is tips, and at some point, those tips are also shared with busboys, hostesses and also in some convoluted process, the restaurant itself. So here waitstaff is not always a great gig to have, the cooks make more an hour, and have less hassles.
I had a lot of catch up to do with you - WOW life has been busy and changes coming your way. I wish you well on this new move and venture.
Life with your boys is very sweet. I loved the little Tucker stories. He is such a love.
Here in the midwest the migrant worker is vital for detasseling corn. The season only lasts about 20 days - mid July on - and is brutal for the heat and humidity, and on the hands. Teens flock to do it - a midwest right of passage - but without the migrant worker it probably would not get. May I copy your paragraph on the Lifetime stuff for my site?
I signed, of course.
Tell Tucker congratulations from Australia.
Well no wonder I'm so miserable. 4 hugs, 8 hugs, 12 hugs a day? I don't get 12 hugs a year! I guess that explains why I'm losing my mind out here in the middle of nowhere!! No kidding!
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