Tuesday, October 30, 2007

the burgeoning poultry industry ... motels have been converted into permanent living quarters for Mexican and Central American workers

The New Face of Unionbusting | by David Bacon | Part 5 | Designing a "Union-Proof" Workforce

... trying to design a "union-proof" workforce. ...

This tactic has again become widespread. In Los Angeles, the cleaning contractors in office buildings in the late 1980s dumped their union workforce, which had a high percentage of African-American workers, and hired immigrants. They shed their union contracts at the same time.

Today in the midwest and southeast, the burgeoning poultry industry is using the same strategy. In tiny towns in Missouri and Arkansas, motels have been converted into permanent living quarters for Mexican and Central American workers, recruited by labor contractors to take jobs in local chicken plants. ...
...
"When you flood the labor market with workfare recipients," explains Fran Bernstein, from the national office of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, "you see enormous wage depression for the bottom third of the workforce. That's intentional." ...

No comments: