It's Time to Boycott Arizona

[MsDemeanor]

Arizona's next motto "All White, All Republican".

[Apocalipstic]

Originally Posted by MsDemeanor

Define "livable wage", please. It's certainly not minimum wage.

For me it is enough to keep a family of four housed, clothed and fed with full insurance and benefits, federal and state taxes, and 5% to save.

Way over minimum wage.

[Apocalipstic]

Originally Posted by MsDemeanor

Arizona's next motto "All White, All Republican".

Except for the people who will lose their jobs becasue of the boycott and not be able to afford to leave.

These will likely be people who make minumum wage.

[MsDemeanor]

Originally Posted by apocalipstic

Except for the people who will lose their jobs becasue of the boycott and not be able to afford to leave.

These will likely be people who make minumum wage.

True. That's the frustrating part of the boycott, it hurts so many people. Legislators who actually had the best interest of their constituents at heart would see how badly this is going to hurt everyone and be working this weekend on new language to reverse the bill. The AZ legislators have instead taken all of the feedback as an excuse to crank out even more racist bills. Hence my thought for the next motto. Keep in mind that I tend to think of a motto as something that an entity strives or envisions itself to be.

[dreadgeek]

Originally Posted by apocalipstic

Maybe I am not seeing this right beacsue I usualy agree with you both.

Would you explain how this would work?

Are you saying if we made all the people who are here and not citizens into citizens then no one would work for less than a livable wage?

Ir that of we allowed no immigration and kicked out everyone who does not have papers then we would all make a livable wage?

How would this work?

Would we still be Capitalist then?

Actually, here's how I see this playing out;

For those jobs that are *not* portable--i.e. those requiring physical presence--the presence of labor willing to work at below-market-rate wages AND who are vulnerable to exploitation because they are afraid of approaching the legal system puts downward pressure on wages in those fields. So if we made it unprofitable for companies to hire undocumented workers (and that would be my preferred approach, get at the problem from the demand side, not the supply side) then that would do two things.

1) It would put upward pressure on the job market. The work would still need to be done, someone would have to do it, so now there would either be a guest-worker program (which we could stipulate *requires* employers to play by Federal and state labor laws) or employers would hire US citizens to do the job.

2) It would eliminate the incentive to get into the US by hook or by crook. Right now, if you are from a border area where there is little to no work and you can, by going north a couple of hundred miles, find work where you would make, in a week, more than you could have made in a month back home you have a pretty powerful incentive to get into the country up north. There would *still* be migration but now there would be no real good reason to route around the immigration process since there's no work here.

(The idea that people come to the United States to live fat and happy upon the endless bounty that is our paltry social safety net is risible.)

The reason why employers *pay* a below-market wage (and here I mean livable) is because they can get away with it. I'm going to use a tale of two lesbians jobs to illustrate my point.

I work for a mid-sized software company. My wife works for a mid-sized cell phone company catering to older people (a competitor of Jitterbug). We are paid fairly well, our benefits are very good and we have a great deal of flexibility--it is nothing for me to say, for instance, that I'm going to finish up the afternoon at home, leave at lunch and then telecommute. When we have a snowpocalypse (where we get snow then ice then snow and then more ice) Portland shuts down. With my company, we just telecommute until the roads clear. My wife has to go in. My wife is seriously underpaid and has to operate under a truly odious set of rules violation of any of which could get one fired very quickly. There ARE things that could get us walked out the door, but handing Tylenol to a co-worker with a headache isn't one of them! Now, we both answer the phone for a living. The difference is that my job requires a pretty diverse and intense skill-set while my wife's job requires the ability to have a good phone manner, the ability to write grammatical sentences and sort of generalized customer service skills.

By any objective measure my wife and her co-workers are abused at work. They are treated, at best, like unruly children and her bosses behave in a way that almost says "we DARE you to quit". They know that they can pull someone off the street and train them to their standards and have them on the phones in a week. My employer dare NOT treat us that way. It is in their best interests to keep us happy. Why? Because on any one of our product groups it takes *at least* six months before you're up to speed and a year before you are truly crossing the threshold of self-reliance (meaning that you can solve most of your user-issues on your own except for the weird stuff). It takes two years before you can reasonably say that you can handle all but the weirdest problems on your own. So if we all walked out the door, they would be seriously hurt for at least six months and more likely two or more years. Since support contracts on *ONE* product alone (the product I support) accounts for 40% of company revenue (those aren't new sales, that's just companies buying support on software they already own) they have a serious incentive NOT to make us miserable lest we leave.

So the tighter the pool of labor is, the better it is for workers. The tighter the pool of jobs, the worse it is for workers.

(cont)

[Apocalipstic]

Originally Posted by MsDemeanor

True. That's the frustrating part of the boycott, it hurts so many people. Legislators who actually had the best interest of their constituents at heart would see how badly this is going to hurt everyone and be working this weekend on new language to reverse the bill. The AZ legislators have instead taken all of the feedback as an excuse to crank out even more racist bills. Hence my thought for the next motto. Keep in mind that I tend to think of a motto as something that an entity strives or envisions itself to be.

Yeah, I agree.

It's crazy. This Governor was not elected by the people and says God is telling her to do these things.

Maybe the Legislators don't quite know what to do with that, except try to save their political careers.

[Apocalipstic]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

Actually, here's how I see this playing out;

For those jobs that are *not* portable--i.e. those requiring physical presence--the presence of labor willing to work at below-market-rate wages AND who are vulnerable to exploitation because they are afraid of approaching the legal system puts downward pressure on wages in those fields. So if we made it unprofitable for companies to hire undocumented workers (and that would be my preferred approach, get at the problem from the demand side, not the supply side) then that would do two things.

1) It would put upward pressure on the job market. The work would still need to be done, someone would have to do it, so now there would either be a guest-worker program (which we could stipulate *requires* employers to play by Federal and state labor laws) or employers would hire US citizens to do the job.

2) It would eliminate the incentive to get into the US by hook or by crook. Right now, if you are from a border area where there is little to no work and you can, by going north a couple of hundred miles, find work where you would make, in a week, more than you could have made in a month back home you have a pretty powerful incentive to get into the country up north. There would *still* be migration but now there would be no real good reason to route around the immigration process since there's no work here.

(The idea that people come to the United States to live fat and happy upon the endless bounty that is our paltry social safety net is risible.)

The reason why employers *pay* a below-market wage (and here I mean livable) is because they can get away with it. I'm going to use a tale of two lesbians jobs to illustrate my point.

I work for a mid-sized software company. My wife works for a mid-sized cell phone company catering to older people (a competitor of Jitterbug). We are paid fairly well, our benefits are very good and we have a great deal of flexibility--it is nothing for me to say, for instance, that I'm going to finish up the afternoon at home, leave at lunch and then telecommute. When we have a snowpocalypse (where we get snow then ice then snow and then more ice) Portland shuts down. With my company, we just telecommute until the roads clear. My wife has to go in. My wife is seriously underpaid and has to operate under a truly odious set of rules violation of any of which could get one fired very quickly. There ARE things that could get us walked out the door, but handing Tylenol to a co-worker with a headache isn't one of them! Now, we both answer the phone for a living. The difference is that my job requires a pretty diverse and intense skill-set while my wife's job requires the ability to have a good phone manner, the ability to write grammatical sentences and sort of generalized customer service skills.

By any objective measure my wife and her co-workers are abused at work. They are treated, at best, like unruly children and her bosses behave in a way that almost says "we DARE you to quit". They know that they can pull someone off the street and train them to their standards and have them on the phones in a week. My employer dare NOT treat us that way. It is in their best interests to keep us happy. Why? Because on any one of our product groups it takes *at least* six months before you're up to speed and a year before you are truly crossing the threshold of self-reliance (meaning that you can solve most of your user-issues on your own except for the weird stuff). It takes two years before you can reasonably say that you can handle all but the weirdest problems on your own. So if we all walked out the door, they would be seriously hurt for at least six months and more likely two or more years. Since support contracts on *ONE* product alone (the product I support) accounts for 40% of company revenue (those aren't new sales, that's just companies buying support on software they already own) they have a serious incentive NOT to make us miserable lest we leave.

So the tighter the pool of labor is, the better it is for workers. The tighter the pool of jobs, the worse it is for workers.

(cont)

OK, I knew you had a plan! and so far I like it!

[dreadgeek]

I learned about this dynamic during the 90's when I got into the computer industry. By 1996 or 1997, things in Silicon Valley were so tilted in favor of labor that we were getting paid *mad* money. Folks were getting jobs as system admins who were barely qualified to do technical support. We had our pick of jobs. I turned down two jobs that paid pretty decent--one was at a law firm I had consulted at in between jobs. They offered me a full-time position as their IT director and told me what they were willing to pay. I *literally* laughed at them and told them that there was no way I would take that responsibility on for anything less than 75K and only that because I had only worked in the field 4 years at that point. I walked out of that office, went a few blocks down the street to a start-up did one interview and had a job offer on my cell phone before I had got back home. The other job was at a large manufacturer of telecommunications equipment. They were ready to pay my moving costs, increase my pay to within spitting distance of six figures but I turned it down because I hate L.A. I had my choice of jobs, what did I need Qualcomm for? I didn't because it was 1998.

Then the bubble burst. That happened right after I moved to Portland. When I moved up here, the start-up moved me up here, was paying me a very, very handsome salary AND had given me 5,000 shares pre-IPO stock. We were going to be TiVo before TiVo was released. Then we didn't get our last round of funding. I went from making 70K in 2000 to 13K in 2001. I ended up working in a call center in 2003 making money I hadn't made since before I got into high tech. Had my skill set gone out of fashion? No. I kept my Linux skills as sharp as ever so I would be ready to plug-and-play into any job that came along. It was simply that, in Oregon, my skills weren't worth that much until 2005 when I got the job I hold now.

I bring this up not to boast but to simply illustrate the difference between a labor market that favors employers (where wages are depressed and employees are treated like crap) and a labor market that favors employees (where wages rise, or at least hold steady, and employees are treated as having some value). I do not blame undocumented immigrants for depressing wages any more than I blame people in India for creating a slight downward pressure on wages in my industry (or in the industry--biomedical research--that I'm moving into). I blame *employers*.

So what I'm saying is that if we make it unprofitable for employers to do two things, which I'll detail in a minute, then employees will do better.

1) I think that US tax law should be changed in the following way. If you want to be considered an American corporation, then at least 75% of your work force MUST be in the United States with those jobs held by US nationals. Your headquarters MUST be in the United States as well. You are free to move your headquarters off-shore, you are free to hire mostly non-US citizens abroad. However, if you do so you are now a *foreign* corporation. You will be taxed as a *foreign* corporation and your products are now *imports* and will be levied as such. That way, the government isn't telling anyone how to run their corporation. There's just clear consequences for moving your operations offshore--one of which is that you are no longer an American corporation.

2) The aforementioned rules re: hiring undocumented workers. What I would like to see are fines that draconian. I mean you hire a *single* undocumented worker you will lose your profits for the year. Each incident after the first costs you another year's profits. Make it *hurt*. Put fear into the hearts of employers. They won't hire undocumented workers.

Both will have a positive, upward force on wages.

Cheers
Aj

[key]

Originally Posted by dreadgeek

I work for a mid-sized software company. My wife works for a mid-sized cell phone company catering to older people (a competitor of Jitterbug). We are paid fairly well, our benefits are very good and we have a great deal of flexibility--it is nothing for me to say, for instance, that I'm going to finish up the afternoon at home, leave at lunch and then telecommute. When we have a snowpocalypse (where we get snow then ice then snow and then more ice) Portland shuts down. With my company, we just telecommute until the roads clear. My wife has to go in. My wife is seriously underpaid and has to operate under a truly odious set of rules violation of any of which could get one fired very quickly. There ARE things that could get us walked out the door, but handing Tylenol to a co-worker with a headache isn't one of them! Now, we both answer the phone for a living. The difference is that my job requires a pretty diverse and intense skill-set while my wife's job requires the ability to have a good phone manner, the ability to write grammatical sentences and sort of generalized customer service skills.

By any objective measure my wife and her co-workers are abused at work. They are treated, at best, like unruly children and her bosses behave in a way that almost says "we DARE you to quit". They know that they can pull someone off the street and train them to their standards and have them on the phones in a week. My employer dare NOT treat us that way. It is in their best interests to keep us happy. Why? Because on any one of our product groups it takes *at least* six months before you're up to speed and a year before you are truly crossing the threshold of self-reliance (meaning that you can solve most of your user-issues on your own except for the weird stuff). It takes two years before you can reasonably say that you can handle all but the weirdest problems on your own. So if we all walked out the door, they would be seriously hurt for at least six months and more likely two or more years. Since support contracts on *ONE* product alone (the product I support) accounts for 40% of company revenue (those aren't new sales, that's just companies buying support on software they already own) they have a serious incentive NOT to make us miserable lest we leave.

So the tighter the pool of labor is, the better it is for workers. The tighter the pool of jobs, the worse it is for workers.

(cont)

Did any else hear the "This American Life" Episode that was the story of GM's Partnership with Toyota back in the 80's. Fascinating, and oh so enlightening. I suggest you search for it if this episode is still available.

Long story short, and leaving out many points made in the story, the Toyota workers in Japan were allowed at any time to pull a yellow cord and stop the entire production line. It could be for anything, from a loose bolt to a major part failure. When the worker pulled the cord, the manager of the plant would rush over to find out what was wrong, taking in every word that the worker said - even writing down suggestions for new tools or other innovations that might fix not only this one problem but future problems.

The result: Quality

GM on the other hand was a production machine and the people there were simply another tool, not there for their minds. There was no yellow cord to pull. In fact any stop of the production line would result in a yelling at from the boss, and possibly losing your job.

The result: Quantity.

Lots and lots of cars ended up sitting in the lot at the end of the production line because they could not even be driven onto the truck for delivery to the dealer.

I once asked a friend visiting from Japan what she thought was the biggest difference between American Society and Japanese Society and her answer was: Everyone in America tries to be an individual, everyone in Japan wants to be part of society.

I think America has a lot to learn from other cultures. In our defense we are a very young country and hopefully we will grow to be a decent adult country. One that cares about being part of society. One that sees the weakest and most vulnerable among us as people to protect and care for rather than to step over or walk around on our way to our individual goals.

[Waldo]

Interested in showing your solidarity? http://stickerobot.com/human/

[betenoire]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/desmon..._b_557955.html

[friskyfemme]

No. I am not saying this bill is a conspiracy. The arrangement of using non federal institutions to house 'undocumented persons' has been in play in AZ since at least 2000 when I worked for the Sheriff's department in a northern county. It does offset the costs for jails. What I am saying is that the benefit of these revenues obviously can help the budget on an escalated level.
Therefore, SB1070 could have favor by some radical politicians responsible for increasing the state funds. The federal funds, of course, come from the national taxpayers. I don't know if other states have this arrangement for housing undocumented persons. I am pretty sure they do.

[MsDemeanor]

I've been listening to a number of conservative officials and pundits discuss the need for this legislation, and they all focus on the drug smuggling being done on the ranches along the border and always mention the rancher who was killed.

I don't categorize people moving back and forth across the border with drugs and guns as undocumented individuals; they're gun runners and drug smugglers. It seems to me that this law is aimed squarely not at the smugglers but rather at the people who have crossed the border to stay in this country for weeks/months/years and are by and large seeking out work that pays better than what they can find in Mexico or Central America.

So tell me, please, because no one on TV will ask this question. How will demanding papers from people in non-border regions of AZ reduce the problem of drugs and guns being smuggled back and forth over the border?

[Jess]

Unfortunately, immigration reform and ALL of its implications is just another toy in the hands of politicians who are using it to better position their party for elections. The extreme right wing will play upon the fears of their pool of voters, and the Dems facing Nov elections will espouse how "something needs to be done and how they will make a difference", surely they mean right AFTER voted in.

I think we will see more folks like Crist leave their party because neither party reflects the values of that party anymore. I think we will start seeing more Independents ( YAY ) fighting for the real issues and dismissing the super-parties.

Unfortunately, what we will not see is the President keep his promise to Hispanic voters (who helped vote him into office), to work on reform laws in his first 90 days.

"Obama takes immigration reform off agenda" link to associated press article:

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories...MPLATE=DEFAULT



It seems to me that we ( collectively) paint a picture of our "oppressor" as Republicans ( whom we see as a bunch of bigoted old white privileged rich folks. We paint an image of Democrats as liberal hosts of freedom and equality who given the opportunity to affect positive change will leap at that chance. Neither of these images are true.

http://somosrepublicans.com/2010/04/...tion-inaction/

It gets increasingly difficult to see our country divided along the lines of race, when I think it is being divided at the hands of people in power playing the "common man" against one another. Both parties will do whatever necessary to hold steadfast to their party position. Or at least, the appearance of it.


Yes. This bill is THE single most actively racist piece of legislature I have seen in my lifetime. Yes, it is unconstitutional without a doubt. I said earlier in this thread that without action taken on the Federal level, we would see more states taking similar action and it looks like some now are.

We as a nation are being played like pawns at the hands of both parties and tear one another apart in our polarizing on this subject and many other currently being played out in the press.


Until our politicians find " US" more important than their party, we will continue to be mis-represented. Until we stop voting for them, we will continue to allow it.

[key]

Originally Posted by MsDemeanor

Define "livable wage", please. It's certainly not minimum wage.

What is so heartbreaking is this definition was giving - and agreed upon - in 1912. Another version came 20 years later or so from FDR when he said "A necessitous man is not a free man" - Meaning if one cannot afford the basics in life, you are a slave to a broken system. "The basics" are defined below by Theodore Roosevelt (who had to leave the Republican Party to get out from the shackles of the corporatocracy if his day - sound familiar?)

Teddy Roosevelt 1912:

We stand for a living wage. Wages are subnormal if they fail to provide a living for those who devote their time and energy to industrial occupations. The monetary equivalent of a living wage varies according to local conditions, but must include enough to secure the elements of a normal standard of living--a standard high enough to make morality possible, to provide for education and recreation, to care for immature members of the family, to maintain the family during periods of sickness, and to permit of reasonable saving for old age.

Key 2010:

Let me break it down.

A living wage must:

secure the elements of a normal standard of living. Wages must be enough to provide enough food, water, shelter, clothing, heat, cooling, transportation, and communication. These are the basics of modern living.

a standard high enough to make morality possible. So no one has to lie cheat or steal to have all of the above necessities of modern life.

to provide for education and recreation. To be able to relax (not working two, three, four jobs) and to be able to better your and your family's station through higher education.

to care for immature members of the family Childcare, tutors, education, special needs.

to maintain the family during periods of sickness To provide health coverage during illness and recovery. to be able to not have to work when you are sick.

and to permit of reasonable saving for old age. To be able to afford to retire.

And let me be clear, I submit that these measures should be met with one (1, a single) wage earner, not mom and pop each working two or three jobs. The reason why the Republicans do not want this. (seriously, there are some crappy Dems, but 100% of the Reps are crappy - on the side of corporations over actual human beings)

Is because when there is a thriving, educated middle class they start getting "uppity", they start demanding things like....Equal Rights, Democracy, like not fighting in rich men's wars, like stopping genocides, like doing the right thing for the planet. Republicans (and some Democrats) prefer that there be no thriving middle class to question their authority.

[Toughy]

Originally Posted by friskyfemme

No. I am not saying this bill is a conspiracy. The arrangement of using non federal institutions to house 'undocumented persons' has been in play in AZ since at least 2000 when I worked for the Sheriff's department in a northern county. It does offset the costs for jails. What I am saying is that the benefit of these revenues obviously can help the budget on an escalated level.
Therefore, SB1070 could have favor by some radical politicians responsible for increasing the state funds. The federal funds, of course, come from the national taxpayers. I don't know if other states have this arrangement for housing undocumented persons. I am pretty sure they do.

Pima County (tucson and the largest border with mexico) Sheriff Dupnik says he doesn't put undocumented folks in his jail. He calls ICE to come get them. I believe I said before that he detains and turns over to ICE more undocumented folks than anyone else in the US......and that is under current law (without this new racist law). Under this new law he will HAVE to put them in his jail.

Yes he (and the other jurisdictions) will get some money back from the Feds. That money will be used to pay the cost of putting that undocumented person in his jail. However, that is not a revenue generating stream of money. It is money already allocated and won't help AZ's state budget one bit. It won't go to the general food for use on roads, schools, libraries, fire police, etc.

The real question is: Will the federal money actually pay for 100% of AZ dollars spent on stopping, arresting, investigating, feeding, clothes, medical, transportation to and from courts, court costs, and other misc costs incurred by enforcement of the new state law?

The thing that still baffles me is Republicans are supposed to want LESS government, yet they keep creating more government on the state level with less tax revenue to pay for the more government they are creating.

---------
By the way they amended the new law. Something about making it more clear this is not profiling. Cops have to have another reason to pull you over than being brown while driving. They also included something about local/town/city ordinances. You know those pesky little racist laws that towns pass......no parking cars in your yard, no litter or debris in your yard or on your porch, no drinking alcohol in your front yard.....well local cops can say 'paper please' if they decide to knock on your door to enforce those laws. (And we all know mexicans are the ones who do those above things...snort).

That governor woman thinks the changes are good and will make the law more defensible when challenged in state and fed courts.

[Toughy]

you know I got to thinking about this more.........

I wonder if the feds will pay a dime for someone jailed under a state law? At what point does that person cease to be a state prisoner and becomes a fed prisoner temporarily housed in a city/county jail.?

[Corkey]

Originally Posted by Toughy

you know I got to thinking about this more.........

I wonder if the feds will pay a dime for someone jailed under a state law? At what point does that person cease to be a state prisoner and becomes a fed prisoner temporarily housed in a city/county jail.?

At what point do they become political prisoners?

[SuperFemme]

Originally Posted by Toughy

you know I got to thinking about this more.........

I wonder if the feds will pay a dime for someone jailed under a state law? At what point does that person cease to be a state prisoner and becomes a fed prisoner temporarily housed in a city/county jail.?

I think that the person will have to serve a sentence in State custody and then will be released to Immigration for deportation. That is why they made it a crime.

I know here in CA you serve the time for a crime if you are undocumented and THEN they turn you over to Immigration.

eta: I don't see Federal monies coming to the state of AZ for the incarceration of persons housed for breaking a state crime. When the Feds rent jail space for holding people in Federal custody, then monies change hands. Not so much for State custody incarcerations.

[SuperFemme]

Originally Posted by MsDemeanor

I've been listening to a number of conservative officials and pundits discuss the need for this legislation, and they all focus on the drug smuggling being done on the ranches along the border and always mention the rancher who was killed.

I don't categorize people moving back and forth across the border with drugs and guns as undocumented individuals; they're gun runners and drug smugglers. It seems to me that this law is aimed squarely not at the smugglers but rather at the people who have crossed the border to stay in this country for weeks/months/years and are by and large seeking out work that pays better than what they can find in Mexico or Central America.

So tell me, please, because no one on TV will ask this question. How will demanding papers from people in non-border regions of AZ reduce the problem of drugs and guns being smuggled back and forth over the border?

I cannot tell you how it will reduce the problem of guns and drugs being smuggled back and forth. I CAN assure you that the price of a good set of forged papers just went up exponentially though.