Unintended consequences.

[OldWiseGuy]

This story caught my attention because I used to be a retail meat cutter, working for most major Midwest chains over a period of 15 years, from 1960-1975. Meat cutting was a great job, good pay and benefits, and done almost entirely in the meat department of the retail store. The job required a high level of skill as all cuts were processed there.

But the industry was changing. Instead of beef being shipped to the stores in "quarters", to be broken down into the various cuts from there the packers began to offer smaller 'primal' cuts; whole ribs, loins, rounds, chucks, etc. broken down in large packing plants, using cheap labor, on a 'disassembly' line. These workers were taught simple cuts and movements and put on the fast moving line. The process soon included poultry as well, which arrived at the stores all cut up and nicely packaged; another task lost to cheap labor. Soon the skills and the great jobs that were once done 'in-store' were lost and thousands of retail meat cutters (yes, mostly white men, and white women meat 'wrappers') were lost forever.

This story reveals what has happened in some parts of the industry as a result. The same fate has visited many industries in the U.S., further reducing our manufacturing base, and lowering our standard of living to that of the foreigners that have invaded our workforce.

Read it and weep, especially if you have lost your job to one of them.

Trump says American workers are hurt by immigration. But after ICE raided this Texas town, they never showed up.

 

[JAM2b]

Progress, production costs, and cheap labor always hurts every one world wide.

To me a larger concern is technology replacing people. In my current job, I work on a computer all day, correcting it's scanning mistakes and filling in data fields that the computer missed. The company is working on creating better software so that the computer does not have to be corrected or helped when it can't read something, meaning faster production and fewer employees to pay wages and benefits for. It's cheaper to upkeep technology than to have humans employed. They (corporations) are phasing out human jobs because it makes them wealthier.

 

[Hearingheart]

Good article. When my son was doing drywall and construction, he saw his job replaced by van loads of foreign workers being brought in at lower wages, doing shoddy work, but the construction firms like the increase in profit. So he quit and learned some new trades. I wonder how many Americans who were displaced found a new avenue for employment and just aren't available any more within their old industry.

 

[Larniavc]

Isn’t this just saying that immigrants are more inclined to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and Work for lower pay while taking fewer drugs, working harder and having a better work ethic than American nationals who join unions, demand good health packages are think that they are entitled to gouge the wealth creators?

After all, employing cheap migrant workers boosts the wealth creator’s profits and as we all know a rising tide raises all ships!

Surely that’s the American way?

 

[Citizen of the Kingdom]

Progress, production costs, and cheap labor always hurts every one world wide.
.... They (corporations) are phasing out human jobs because it makes them wealthier.

They (the corporations ) owe their existence to the law passed for negros to be deemed as human beings. A law that few bothered with. Except it was used by corporate businesses to deem themselves unaccountable. (or no human to be responsive to laws individually) The irony is the inhumane treatment of humans by machine driven industry.

 

[faroukfarouk]

Good article. When my son was doing drywall and construction, he saw his job replaced by van loads of foreign workers being brought in at lower wages, doing shoddy work, but the construction firms like the increase in profit. So he quit and learned some new trades. I wonder how many Americans who were displaced found a new avenue for employment and just aren't available any more within their old industry.

Calvin Coolidge said "The business of America is business" and it used to be a given - at a time when foreign competition was less - that labour was mobile and had to be ready to learn new skills. Now with huge foreign competition - both in goods and in migrant labour - there is sometimes a tendency to want to be insulated from competition and for a 'return to normalcy', so to speak. Whereas it's probably fair to say that there was never really a day of 'normalcy' when the economy was supposedly static.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

Isn’t this just saying that immigrants are more inclined to pull themselves up by their bootstraps and Work for lower pay while taking fewer drugs, working harder and having a better work ethic than American nationals who join unions, demand good health packages are think that they are entitled to gouge the wealth creators?

After all, employing cheap migrant workers boosts the wealth creator’s profits and as we all know a rising tide raises all ships!

Surely that’s the American way?

A rising tide raises all boats (not everyone has a 'ship').

 

[Larniavc]

A rising tide raises all boats (not everyone has a 'ship').

I don’t think the phrase applies to people who only have boats.

 

[OldWiseGuy]

I don’t think the phrase applies to people who only have boats.

The taxes paid by those who own ships are used to keep those small boats afloat.