America's Guest Worker Program

It would be easy to write about Delay's fall, about the Republican culture of corruption, about the abuse of power and the eventual comeuppance of those who thumb their noses at the law. Being a liberal Democrat, it's somehow my fault that Delay attempted to circumvent Texas campaign finance law, associated with known criminals and at best looked the other way while his aides committed fraud. But then, we have Cynthia McKinney on our side, who thinks she's above the law and who embodies the "bad Democrat" by playing the race and gender card because she tried to rush a security checkpoint without proper identification and, in a post 9-11 world, the security forces detained her. Too many others will write about those for my opinions to be noted (if they are at all).

To see the problems with a guest worker program, one must only look to Germany. In the 1970's and 1980's, Germany was in the middle of their Wirtschaftswunder, or economic miracle. Things were booming. Everyone worked, in fact, so many people worked that there weren't enough hard-working Germans to fill those low-paying, low skilled jobs. There was an answer. Within Europe there were a number of countries in economic distress. Germany allowed Gastarbeiter (Guest Workers) to come in droves and cut grass, clean toilets, do hard physical work for wages no self-respecting German would accept. In return, Turkey and Italy and Greece exported their poverty and for a long time, all was well.

Then the German economy turned sour. Instead of leaving, as the Government had planned by not allowing these people to apply for citizenship or even permanent residence, they faded into the shadows of the German economy. Some did go home, those sons and daughters of Gastarbeiter who had educated themselves and were able to make a go of it in their country of origin. Some were recognized by neither country but, ironically, the German people had to support the remaining guest workers within their social system and the lower-paying countries thrived, selling cheap goods and services to Germany.

Unlike Germany, Americans aren't so orderly. In the '90's when we had full employment and tax surpluses (remember Clinton?), we had more jobs than people. We also had a vast pool of cheap labor across the border to the south. In a tacit agreement, people made it across the border and were put to work doing things no self-respecting American would do for the money, cleaning toilets, picking vegetables, building houses in the hot sun. While we invested in the dot-com bubble and worked in our air-conditioned offices, illegal immigrants did our dirty work. Mexico exported its poverty northward and abdicated its responsibility to care for its citizens. We got cheap labor.

Problem is, the laborers were here illegally. Unlike Germany, we didn't enforce labor laws to make sure the guest workers got adequate pay, workman's compensation, insurance or other benefits. By making our guest worker program a part of the underground economy, we were able to keep wages unnaturally low and were able to avoid the problem Germany had, of non-paying residents of the country dragging the social system into the ground. Now, under the Bush economy, the guest workers from down south are becoming a problem. There are eleven million of them here, many working under illegal conditions with no health care nor even workman's compensation. They can be fired at a whim. They have no rights under U. S. labor law and are afraid to exercise those they have: They file a complaint, they're found out, they're deported.

The Republican Senate is debating some low compromise that will benefit industry by keeping the cheap labor around but will screw us by not allowing for enforcement of labor laws. They want to seal the border so what's next, machine gunning women and children crossing the border? Like Germany, we're not going to be able to get rid of our guest workers now that they've become an inconvenience so the best course? Enforce labor laws, even where illegals are involved. Allow illegals working here, willing to learn the language and abide by our laws to remain and become citizens. Deport the rest but by enforcing labor laws and by making illegally cheap labor more expensive, you dry up the demand for guest workers.

Eventually the supply will hear about it and stop coming. They cross the border based on their needs but always remember, while they're here, they're serving ours.